Letter From a Collective Editor
Hello! My name is Erin, and I’ve been a pen pal with this collective since 2020. It’s great to be in your inbox this month as the newsletter editor! I have been so grateful for this community as a space to learn, grow, and work together. I have a pen pal, Steve, who is incarcerated in Texas. Within the collective, I’ve been involved in several ways over the years, including as a facilitator of the pen pals backend working group, a member of the finance team, and most recently, as part of the group organizing around mail policies in Texas prisons. I live in Tennessee with my fiance, Liam, and our dog, Super, and I enjoy running, reading, cooking, and singing in a choir.
If you have any questions about upcoming events or the contents of this newsletter, feel free to send a note to our email inbox: abolitionapostles@gmail.com
I can be reached via email at erinorourke17@gmail.com if you want to contact me personally.
Your March editor,
Erin O’Rourke
Here’s What’s Up This Month
Name Change Updates!
Since our organizational transition began in 2021, we’ve wanted to change our name, to reflect the transformation this collective has gone through. In the fall, we reached out to inside and outside pen pals alike to brainstorm name ideas, and we’re now ready for more input! Please take a few minutes to complete this survey to rank some name ideas. We also encourage you to send it to your inside pen pal and report the responses you receive. The deadline for submitting this feedback is May 1, but please let us know if you need more time to hear back from an inside pen pal.
Meetings
Refer to the calendar website, Slack, and Instagram for any schedule adjustments
Support Squad is for anyone who would like a space to share and support one another in processing how penpaling is going. The next meeting is Monday, April 22 at 8 pm ET. Meeting link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/91295521042?pwd=SnhnSVlEckFwVHk3SmFxOUk5TWFpZz09
Penpals Backend Working Group meets to coordinate all the logistics related to supporting pen pals, including matching pen pals after orientations, responding to emails, maintaining the website and database, and more. All are welcome to join us on Tuesday, April 2nd at 7:30 PM Central Time (8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific). Meeting link: https://tulane.zoom.us/j/97191232122.
Texas Prison Mail Organizing Group meets to organize against a recent change to Texas mail policy that negatively impacts our pen pals. Join us Tuesday, April 2nd, for a strategy session about upcoming action opportunities. Anyone located in the Austin, TX, area is especially encouraged to attend! We’ll meet at 6:00 Central (7:00 Eastern, 4:00 Pacific) Meeting link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87178623935?pwd=bWp1cDFiOHZQWmJXd1NhU0lFWjdTdz09
Orientation: Whether you’ve never been matched with a pen pal, want a refresher, or want to invite a friend to join the collective, you’re welcome at orientation meetings! These typically happen at least twice a month. There’s one orientation scheduled for this Saturday, March 30th, at 1 pm Eastern/10 am Pacific, and April dates (so far) are Monday, April 8th, and Monday, April 22nd, both at 8 pm Eastern time. If you can’t make these dates, please send us an email. We can often make small group meetings at different times happen. See our calendar (https://www.abolitionapostles.com/calendar/) for meeting links.
Book Club meets to read and discuss fiction books through an abolitionist lens. They’re currently in between books, but are starting to solicit ideas for their next book. If you’re interested, the easiest way to engage is to join our #bookclub Slack channel. Books they’ve read include The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, Circe by Madeline Miller, Begin the World Over by Kung Li Sun, and The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin.
Volunteer Opportunities:
Are you a pen pal? Do you like reading this newsletter? We’re looking for people to serve as newsletter editors in upcoming months— new and experienced pen pals are encouraged to sign up! We provide a template, and other collective members are happy to work with you on sections as you prefer. Use the link below to express interest and sign up:
Resources
Inside pen pal Auner put together these instructions to help other inside pen pals apply for social security. (He shared them with us via his outside pen pal, Renee). It’s one of many resources for pen pals in our volunteer-created resource spreadsheet. If you have any resources you’d like to share with the group, please add them to the spreadsheet!
Support an Inside Pen Pal
Outside pen pal Sarah K. shared the following on Slack, and we’ve included it here to reach a broader audience. Please consider supporting Mary in her re-entry!
One of my penpals is up for parole this July. In her last letter, she asked for additional funds of $180 to purchase clothing for her release. Mary is a disabled senior and does not have an outside support system. My penpal's name is Mary Wilson and her JPay account is under WA-1392 in the California Corrections system if folks would like to send funds to her directly. My Venmo is @Sarah-Kramer-106 and any funds received will be put on Mary's J-pay account for her clothes and toiletries. I will distribute any additional funds received to Mary after her release to help her get her living situation stabilized post-incarceration. Thank you for any help you can provide.
Support Our Work
We accept donations via OpenCollective, where you can view details of our expenses. More details on our webpage.
Pen Pal Spotlight
Steve and Erin
A selection of greetings from letters Steve has sent me.
Steve and I have been pen pals since the fall of 2020 when we were matched through this collective. Steve is in his 50s, grew up in Iowa, and has been incarcerated in a Texas prison for the past five years. He is a reader, writer, peer minister, and friend. In our first few months of writing, we realized that we have several things in common: our shared faith, a love of books, and an interest in politics. We exchange handwritten letters each month, sometimes stretching to 10+ pages, depending on how much has happened in our lives. While we’ve discussed many topics, one interesting thing we’ve worked on together is helping Steve research his family history and his birth family, since he was adopted as a child. I’ve been able to help Steve contact libraries, look up old newspapers, and access other resources to help him in his search.
In recent months, a change to Texas’s policy around paper mail has made it hard to stay in touch like we had in the past: Texas prisons no longer accept personal mail at each facility but rather send it to a central processing center, where it is scanned and sent to tablets where the recipients read the scanned copies. This process has become massively backlogged, with delays of up to 2 months between when mail is sent and received. While we have employed a few temporary workarounds (detailed below), there’s nothing like receiving physical mail from a friend. I’ve joined the group organizing to change this policy, and in the upcoming weeks, we’re planning a few ways to take action. I hope you’ll consider joining us for one of these to advocate for our friends in Texas prisons.
For anyone else who has a pen pal in Texas, there’s one tip Steve shared with me that’s helped us keep in touch: there is an exception to the central processing facility policy for mail from religious organizations. While this collective has moved away from our religious origins in recent years and is working to change our name, I’ve found that mail with “Abolition Apostles” in the first line of the return address has been accepted at Steve’s prison and got to him quickly. It may be worth a try for you as well. In addition, we’ve used JPay when urgent communication was needed, but we’ve discussed and would prefer to use physical letters when possible.
Despite these and other challenges imposed by the prison system, I’m grateful for Steve’s letters and the relationship we have built together.
Links:
This article from Time has more detail about the policy change and its impact on people in prison.
Join us in the #tdcj-mail-organizing channel on Slack to get info about future meetings and how you can join us!
Abolitionist News
A (small) victory:
More cities are rolling out non-police crisis response workers, according to this article from The Marshall Project.
A setback:
New laws in Louisiana eliminate parole for most new sentences, alongside other punitive measures. Read more about the changes in this article from AP News.
Political Education
I can’t say enough about the resources offered by Study and Struggle, a Mississippi-based collective that pairs people in prison with outside folks to engage in political education together. Their spring curriculum is focused on Palestinian Liberation, Politicization and Community, and Revolutionary Love. Whether you want to read it all or check out a single article, it’s worth a look.
Let’s Discuss!
Something to spark conversation with your pen pal. This prompt will also be posted to Slack, Instagram, Twitter (X), and Facebook. Share your answer and your penpal’s answer with us there, if you want.
What does friendship mean to you?
As always, thanks for reading, and for being a part of this community!
Connect with us!
Email: AbolitionApostles@gmail.com