Rev. Ted and Linda Schroeder were be honored for their work primarily relating to incarceration. Ted directs the Prison Family Services program that enables families without transportation to visit their loved ones by bus to any one of 20 Missouri prisons each month- a total of 3,000 visits every year!

For the past two decades, Linda has dedicated herself to helping ex-offenders through an innovative program called Project COPE (Congregations + Offender Partnership Enterprise). COPE consists of 37 congregational teams- Protestant, Catholic, Jewish- that are matched with newly released ex-offenders, whom Linda has carefully screened. These teams, whom she has trained, work with their COPE partners for a year under her supervision. Some ex-offenders also live in COPE's three transitional housing facilities, located nearby. Once rundown or abandoned buildings, they were remodeled by COPE volunteers, using grant funding Linda obtained. Linda has spread the COPE model to ten other states.