ST. CLOUD — Big paper flowers and inmate artwork adorned the gym at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud, adding color to an event that puts community groups face-to-face with incarcerated men.

For the 10th year in a row, St. Cloud prison held a release planning fair Wednesday.

Vendors included Alcoholics Anonymous, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and job and housing programs like Better Futures Minnesota and Crossing HOME.

Seventy organizations sent people to share information on services crucial to men as they're released from prison.

"(The men are) amazed that all these people are there and are willing to help them," said Jacqueline Richards, the facility's transitions program coordinator. "A lot of them think that once they get out (of prison) there's nobody there to help."

Robert Lee collected materials from various vendors and spotted opportunities he didn't know existed. Lee has been incarcerated in St. Cloud for more than four years and became a licensed barber this year after training at the prison.

Related: Central Minnesota prison, armory, amphitheater funded in House GOP bonding plan

The 28-year-old attended Wednesday's event as a guest speaker. While the vendors ate lasagna and salad, Lee told his story.

He did well in school and work until his luck ran out and his support system faltered.

"I chose to rob and take what I couldn't get through legal means, and I justified it by saying 'I tried it the right way and it didn't work,'" Lee said.

Lee has nine years left to serve, but he's already planning for his release and hopes to open a barber shop.

"Time moves a lot faster in prison than most people think," Lee said. "I want to get ahead of it, rather than wait for my last couple years."

Men and women in Minnesota prisons face many barriers when they re-enter their communities, said Kelley Heifort, the Department of Corrections' re-entry services director.

Related: St. Cloud prison opens brand new health center (2017)

Many are required to work, have a place to live and stay sober as conditions of their release, Heifort said. There's also the challenge of social stigma tied to people with criminal histories.

The release planning fair shows inmates there are people rooting for them, Heifort said. Every state prison holds one fair a year and offers classes for inmates a few months before they rejoin the community to help them prepare.

Ninety-five percent of the prison population is released back into the community, said Brian Collins, associate warden of administration in St. Cloud.

Prisons used to just house and feed incarcerated men and women, he said. But that approach didn't work.

"Our goal is that re-entry (into the community) starts at intake," Collins said. "Philosophically, it's a paradigm shift from what we used to do, warehousing offenders."

Related: St. Cloud prison in middle of $37 million worth of upgrades (2017)

When some inmates leave the system they cannot go home, said Rosie Braun, a volunteer with Crossing HOME, which provides housing and job support for former offenders.

One man told Braun: "I have no place to go when I get out. I can't go home because I'll fall back into that same trap," she recounted.

Programs at the fair may help keep offenders sober and away from trouble and help humanize them.

"If you can find a job, all of a sudden, you start feeling like a person again," Braun said. "Here you're kind of a number."

Nora G. Hertel: 320-255-8746, nhertel@stcloudtimes.com and on Twitter @nghertel.