2025 Annual Report
Where We Were. Where We Are. Where We Are Going.
When I look back at where My Way Out began, I don’t just see numbers on a page, I see people, moments, and faith in a vision that many believed was too ambitious for such a small team.
Message From Our Executive Director
Ruben Gaona
Where we were
In the fall of 2021, My Way Out was still proving what was possible. With limited resources and a deep belief that people are more than their worst mistake, we served just over 100 individuals and delivered essential supportive services. That year laid the foundation. We were building trust inside correctional facilities, listening to justice-impacted individuals, and showing partners that lived experience is not a liability, it is a strength.
Where we are
Fast forward to today, and the growth has been nothing short of extraordinary. In just a few short years, My Way Out has expanded from serving dozens to hundreds of individuals annually, delivering thousands of wraparound supportive services, strengthening families, increasing wages, and stabilizing housing. We now operate across dozens of correctional institutions, partner with county and state agencies, national foundations, and leading employers, and are recognized as a trusted leader in both pre- and post-release reentry work. What makes this growth even more powerful is how it was accomplished: with a small, committed, mission-driven staff who show up every day carrying both professional expertise and lived experience. This team does not just provide services; they walk alongside people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. Their work proves that scale does not require losing soul.
Where we are going
The future of My Way Out is bold, innovative, and grounded in dignity. We are expanding workforce pathways, leveraging technology and data, deepening housing solutions, and strengthening our Reaching In, Helping Out model so that individuals are prepared before release, not after crisis hits. We are committed to meeting people where they are, removing systemic barriers, and continuing to show that when you invest in people, communities thrive. As someone who once returned home from incarceration myself, this work is deeply personal. My Way Out exists because I know firsthand that opportunity, when paired with belief, changes everything. This organization is living proof that transformation is possible, that redemption is real, and that justice-impacted individuals are leaders, parents, innovators, and community builders.
To our staff, board, partners, funders, and most importantly, to the individuals who trusted us with their journey, thank you. This is not just our story. It is your story. And we are only getting started.
Message From Our President
Karen Coy-Romano, CFRE, MS
I have had the privilege of working with Ruben for 5 years. Meeting Ruben and hearing his vision for the impact he wanted to have working with justice-impacted individuals—and not knowing where to begin re-ignited the fire I have had in me for the last 60 years that I have been working to accomplish what others said couldn’t be done. Hearing him say that others told him he would never amount to anything was the same message I was told as a young teen. We both shared an “I’ll show you’ attitude. What Ruben didn’t know was how my background prepared me to be incarcerated and/or to help those who were.
With unimaginable trauma you may experience in your life, it can break you, eventually leading to prison or self-sabotage with drugs, criminal behavior, or risky environments due to extreme poverty. I started life as an orphan locked up missing my entire childhood for the first 13 years. With the kindness of strangers in the projects, I avoided juvenile detention becoming an emancipated minor living in poverty with years of drug use—again avoiding prison when the police broke down the door of a drug house I was in. I was sleeping on the floor of a 6-by 8-foot room paying $10 a week with 15 other people until one day, someone knocked on my door and said, ‘let me help you.’ He did for 10 years. I slept in a bed and ate meals for the first time—and finally felt safe. Fast forward years later, I pursued my professional education and became a sought-after nonprofit executive and community activist building others capacity for success and raising millions for over 60 organizations.
For the last 5 years, I have provided strategic leadership to MWO in collaboration with Ruben and more than quadrupled the contributions to our mission. I am not done yet. They say God puts people in your life and you theirs when it is needed most. I was never religious, but I believe now. We are here for you!
