How Kyle Kuzma is helping the 'forgotten' incarcerated women in his hometown of Flint, Michigan

FLINT, Mich. — It was beautifully agonizing, or perhaps depressingly encouraging, watching female inmates at Genesee County Jail unite with their families and children days after Thanksgiving.

They’re sharing meals and pleasantries, eating pizza and popcorn. Before long, these women will fully resume normal lives and be back out in the world, hopefully comfortable enough in society to never return to such a place again.

Kyle Kuzma is playing a part in bridging that gap, recognizing that the world often forgets about people who become incarcerated and aren’t given the tools to be in better situations than the circumstances that placed them in jail.

The Washington Wizards forward and Flint native partnered with the I.G.N.I.T.E. inmate program and the R.I.S.E. reentry program through his foundation. The former has multiple six-week programs that highlight education and skill initiatives, and the latter supports these women in their first six months as they exit the jail system.

The numbers are eye-popping.

According to prisonpolicy.org, nationally, 80% of women in jail are mothers, most of whom are the primary caretakers for their children. The mortality rate in jail is higher for women than for men, and women are more likely to enter jail with a medical problem or serious mental illness.

I.G.N.I.T.E., established in September 2020, states that it has delivered more than 250,000 hours of training and has seen jail violence drop by 97%. Inmates can get their GEDs and receive assistance with mental health, among other initiatives.

R.I.S.E., founded in September in Genesee County, serves people with mild to moderate offenses who’ll be returning home within six months.

Through the Kyle Kuzma Family Foundation, Kuzma sponsored a gift-giving party and donated more than $60,000 worth of clothes to the incarcerated women to wear home and for job interviews.

The occasionally flamboyant Kuzma was low-key but engaging, belting, “Who wants presents?” to the wonder and smiles of the children there. He delivered wrapped boxes to the kids, announcing their names and watching them open board games, dolls, scooters, arts and crafts, and more. Shortly after, one of the eight inmates was in tears with her mother while holding her newborn daughter for the first time.

Kuzma noticed the moment, came over and quietly embraced both, then began a conversation.

“During holiday time, a lot of women in prison are forgotten about,” Kuzma said. “Very marginalized. It was important for me, growing up here, to help make an impact in prison reform.”

Flint is just over an hour away from the Detroit Pistons’ arena, where a night later, Kuzma had one of his best games of the season, with 32 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists in a Wizards victory.

But he flew ahead of his team, getting to the area a few hours early to make the presentation to the inmates, who, Kuzma noted multiple times, will be exiting the jail soon.

Kuzma — and his mother, who was in attendance and part of the presentation Sunday — moved around Flint’s south side during his youth. He can recall the cross streets of just about every location, but he said he didn’t think anything of it, didn’t think he had a childhood that was deprived of anything.

“I won’t say it was frantic. You weren’t thinking, ‘This is tough. This is hard,’” Kuzma said. “I was a kid. That’s your life. That’s your reality. You don’t know anything else. Naturally, I loved it here.”

When he left for college, Flint was never far from his mind or his heart.

Long before the NBA began leaning into issues surrounding social justice following the death of George Floyd in 2020, Kuzma was sitting quietly in a visiting locker room as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, lamenting the state of affairs in his home city.

He wondered if Flint had been forgotten about. The poisoning of the city’s water from 2014 had not been solved, and no one had been held accountable for the damage done to citizens.

“It’s been forgotten. The water issue has been swept under the rug,” Kuzma said. “You know, you just think of all the businesses that were here over the years and over the decades — gone. But it’s a city with a lot of heart, though.”

Flint was once a hotbed for basketball talent — Michigan State built a powerhouse on it in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Kuzma represents the best Flint has to offer in terms of basketball and basketball character.

“That’s just one of many of the things he does,” Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. told Yahoo Sports. “He does so many things that are under the radar. It’s not self-serving. It’s not to promote him. He does because he truly cares about the community he comes from, the community he lives in, things that he’s done in D.C. It speaks volumes for who we have as people. You can’t overstate the value of that.”

Kuzma denied that his celebrity is more burden than responsibility, and that seemed to show as he spoke to the inmates before their graduation ceremony and shook hands and gave hugs as they received their certificates.

“I understand my platform of doing things here. I’m visible. It’s my duty. It’s my responsibility,” he said. “I know how much impact I make, all the time. Whether it’s donations or things I’ve done here, basketball camps, being here [today]. I’m in-season, and I’m here.”

It wasn’t Kuzma’s first visit to the jail, so he didn’t experience the same shock as someone seeing everything for the first time. As part of his donation, the foundation refurbished housing inside the jail to improve conditions for the women.

“It’s a very enlightening moment, just that I can be a part of this and, you know, be a small part of making this kind of happen,” Kuzma said. “If it wasn’t for these type of programs, they wouldn’t have this time with each other. And just to be a part of it, it’s special.”

Female incarceration has been on the rise in the United States. The conditions, as in many jails and prisons throughout the States, can be inhumane and might do very little to assist or rehabilitate inmates to being better citizens — or even affect the justice system that has placed them there.

Sixty percent of women held in jails under local control are pre-trial detainees, and once convicted, they’re more likely to be held in jails than prisons, according to prisonpolicy.org.

“A lot of times, like, this is the most stability that people have in their lives,” Kuzma said. “When they leave now, they’re in the world with no structure. So I think that that’s been a hand-in-hand thing, R.I.S.E. helping these people for the first six months just to reinforce everything they have and feel like they have someone that’s helping them. That they’re not just in an unstable world.”