Veronica Maiden sat in a cell at the Jefferson County Jail in Bessemer for 64 days after being arrested March 9 on charges of violating probation and failure to appear in court. She could have been released pending the resolution of the charges, but instead had to stay behind bars because she could not afford to pay her bail, which had been set at $5,500.

Maiden and her two children assumed she would miss Mother's Day this year. But on Friday she was freed by local advocates, who footed the bill for her bail as part of a coordinated nationwide effort called National Mama's Bail Out Day.

"It's great - best Mother's Day ever," Maiden said Friday evening during an event in the basement of Birmingham's St. Paul United Methodist Church celebrating the release of her and two other mothers from the Bessemer facility. "It gives you some hope. You're not forgotten about. There's someone out there thinking about people in jail."

Freed mother Veronica Maiden (right to left), Birmingham Black Lives Matter chapter core leader Eric Hall, freed mother Coressia Davis and Birmingham Black Lives Matter chapter co-founder Cara McClure pose with an attendee of the Friday event celebrating the release of three women from the Jefferson County Jail in Bessemer. The event was held in the basement of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Birmingham.

The Alabama effort to bail out mothers in time for Mother's Day was led by Cara McClure, founder of Birmingham's Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter, and Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, founder of The Ordinary People Society, a Dothan nonprofit advocacy group.

On Thursday and Friday, the duo took their efforts on the road, visiting detention facilities across the state and attempting to identify and free mothers who were eligible for bail but could not afford to pay. The effort was backed by $25,000 that Glasgow said The Ordinary People Society received from a national advocacy group and more than $13,000 raised over the past week by Birmingham's BLM chapter.

The initiative is an attempt to draw attention to a systemic injustice while helping to keep families together, Glasgow said Thursday morning outside the Birmingham City Jail in the city's South Titusville neighborhood.

"We need these mothers out. No one deserves to be locked up and be away from their children just because they're poor," he said. "They are being locked up because they couldn't pay a fine or court costs or a cash bond to get out. They're not arresting you for being poor, but they're locking you up for not being able to pay."

Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, founder of The Ordinary People Society, and Cara McClure, co-founder of the Birmingham chapter of Black Lives Matter, stand outside the Birmingham City Jail in the city's South Titusville neighborhood Thursday morning.

Coressia Davis spent 36 days at the Jefferson County jail in Bessemer after being arrested April 7 on a charge of possessing a forged instrument. She had been unable to pay her bail, which was set at $15,000, but she was bailed out Friday as part of the Mother's Day initiative. She said that the experience "shows that you've got to keep the faith," even during trying times.

"It's a good thing I'm out for Mother's Day so I can put flowers on my baby's grave," Davis said at the Friday celebration.

It took more than six hours to complete the process of securing the three women's release on Friday, but McClure said the effort was more than worth it.

"Today has been like a rollercoaster, but it ended up being a big blessing," said McClure, who added that a couple other Alabama women has been freed in recent weeks as part of the initiative.

Still, she and Glasgow say there is much more work to be done if their ultimate goal of bringing an end to "money bail" in every state is to be achieved. They plan to continue freeing people - including dads during the lead-up to Father's Day next month - who are incarcerated because they cannot afford bail and to keep pushing for state and national legislation aimed at ending the practice.

"Basically, ladies, we just wanted to show you that you're deserving of restorative justice and you're deserving of grace and you're deserving of love," McClure said at the Friday evening event. "None of us here believe that people should be sitting in jail because they don't have money to pay bail."

Bail bonding companies line 6th Avenue South directly opposite the Birmingham City Jail in the city's South Titusville neighborhood.

Connecting incarcerated mothers with their children for Mother's Day is an idea gaining popularity across the country. The National Mama's Bail Out Day raised more than $250,000 for this year's effort, which is expected to lead to the release of dozens of such moms nationwide.

And another program, aimed at helping kids in California visit their mothers in prison for the holiday, is the subject of a new film project called "Mother's Day." The documentary effort, which is drawing national attention, tags along as the non-profit Center for Restorative Justice Works buses children to prisons to spend time with their mothers.

The initiatives are having a real impact on families who are getting to spend Mother's Day with the freed women as well as on the mothers themselves, Glasgow said.

"The impact it has on the person is the fact that someone cared enough, someone loved them enough to go help them out," Glasgow said.