With the next few weeks open for holiday fun, snowy days, and some well-deserved free time for students, there is no better time to help out people who are currently incarcerated. Specifically, there is no better time to spread holiday cheer, warmth, and love to those behind bars. Whether that be from toy donations or letter writing, these next few organizations will help you dedicate some of your spare holiday time to folks who deserve some shine. If you do not have any money or gifts to spare, please consider sharing these organizations to help spread their message and support their goals.
Become a penpal to someone in prison:
The organization Black and Pink offers not only year-round pen pal services but specifically offers a holiday program. This organization specializes in assisting LGBTQIA+ individuals behind bars, and its pen pal program matches incarcerated people across the country with people who can act as a support system and send some holiday cheer. Black and Pink believes that correspondence is a harm reeducation strategy, so their holiday pen pal program ensures that all of their inside members receive letters. The organization matches you with 5, 10, or 15 people, and the letters are sent physically to the prisons. If you have access to printing, envelopes, and stamps, check out Black and Pink here!
Donate any spare money to provide gifts and support for the family members of those incarcerated:
The Prison Fellowship is one of many organizations that is hosting donations to ensure that the children of incarcerated people have a special holiday season. Their program, called the Angel Tree, incorporates local congregations into the gifting season to incarcerated people, and they further connect the families with year-round support in the church and for other activities.
Another organization running donations is the Officer Aid and Restoration organization (OAR). While they have done holiday-specific donations in the past, their current donations are year-round and cover a variety of categories of things. From gift cards to metro cards, OAR is collecting these gifts to support incarcerated people and their families. While it is not holiday specific, this donation drive is the perfect opportunity to give back this holiday season; donations help provide housing, counseling, and even emergency services to formerly incarcerated people—which is even more crucial during these cold months. Check out their donation drive here.
Donate to commissary funds for those inside prisons:
HEARD is an organization dedicated to assisting deaf and disabled people—and this holiday season, they are focusing on incarcerated community members and their families. Currently, they are running a holiday donation drive to send funds to currently and formerly incarcerated people in the name of “radical love and solitary with our loved ones impacted by incarceration.” Each donation helps to support commissary funds, family travel and visitation support for the loved ones of incarcerated people, and mutual aid such as welcome home packages for those leaving incarceration (which includes clothes, food, technology, etc. to get people back on their feet).
HEARD, as described on its website, is “a cross-disability abolitionist organization that unites across identities, communities, movements, and borders to end ableism, racism, capitalism, and all other forms of oppression and violence.” This holiday season is a time for them to focus specifically on how mass incarceration and prison conditions affect people with disabilities, and their holiday fundraiser is an example of one of many kinds of mutual aid the organization conducts. To learn more about the organization’s donation drive, click here.
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