Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this segment.

On Monday nights, listening to community radio station WMMT 88.7 in Whitesburg, Kentucky has become routine for inmates at several nearby prisons. For more than a decade, the station has been airing the program "Calls from Home," which broadcasts messages that families have left for incarcerated loved ones. 

Sylvia Ryerson worked at WMMT for several years answering and archiving those calls before working as a freelance radio producer. She developed relationships with many of the callers and, drawing inspiration from them, began the Restorative Radio project. The project helps to produce audio postcards from some of the show's regular callers, who were given professional recording equipment so they could share the everyday sounds of home with their loved ones in prison far away. 

Essie Manns, the grandmother of DeVaughn Hall who is incarcerated four hours away, not only recorded a personal message — she took the recorder with her to church on a Sunday and then home afterward to capture the sounds at a family fish fry. 

Michelle Hudson is the fiancée of William Griffin who is serving time in prison seven hours away from her home. She took the equipment for three months and created a 40-plus minute postcard for William, recording voices he hadn't heard in years.  

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear clips from the project, and to hear Ryerson and Hudson share their experiences with Restorative Radio.