Prison Fellowship offers hope to Houston kids

More than 300 Houston children of incarcerated parents will spend Saturday at the MI3 Center for a free basketball camp featuring a speaker who has lived on both sides of a prison sentence.

Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Sports Camp returns to Houston on Aug. 1, pairing a free day of basketball, mentorship, and gear with a message organizers say matters more than the game itself.

“We’re saying, hey, you’re not alone,” said featured speaker Brandon Johnson, a former University of San Diego basketball standout once pursued by the Phoenix Suns and Washington Wizards organizations before his career took a sharp turn.

In 2013, Johnson was sentenced to six months in federal prison for conspiring to commit sports bribery during his final college season. He later played eight years overseas before returning to Houston to mentor youth, and has partnered with Prison Fellowship for five years.

His mother was incarcerated when he was a child, and he and his siblings were split up with no one to help them process it.

“I was a kid whose mom was taken away from me,” Johnson said. “Nobody helped me navigate what I was going through.”

That gap is what Nikki Mattison, Angel Tree’s events manager, said the camp exists to close. 

“Basketball is just a tool to get every one of those kids in a space and in an environment where they do not feel like they are the only child dealing with the trauma, and the heartaches of having a parent that’s incarcerated,” she said.

Mattison speaks from experience. She was an Angel Tree kid herself, with both parents incarcerated.

That shared background is part of why Johnson connects with both generations at the camp, Mattison said, noting he speaks to caregivers and grandparents as well as kids.

“Brandon’s story is so powerful because he not only has dealt with the same trials and hardships of having a mom who was incarcerated,” Mattison said. “But then to go on and reach the success that he did in basketball and then end up incarcerated himself.”

Prison Fellowship serves more than 3,000 Angel Tree children in the Houston area and more than 6,000 across the metro area, Mattison said. More than 350 are registered this year, though turnout typically reaches about 300. The camp has been held at the MI3 Center for four years. Mattison credited the site’s six basketball courts and central location for the fit.

Kids will receive Nike shoes and basketballs, with food donated by Chick-fil-A. The real purpose plays out in a parent breakout session, where Prison Fellowship connects caregivers to local churches, therapy, mentorship, after-school programs, and full camp scholarships.

Johnson mentors youth in Harris County juvenile facilities through his nonprofit, the AWAKE Program, with a major goal in mind.

“We believe that no family, regardless of whether you’re impacted by incarceration or not, should ever feel as if they’re doing life alone,” Johnson said. “We want to bring hope and restoration on the inside for the parents and also come around the family on the outside.”

For more information, visit prisonfellowship.org.