Part 1: we're recruiting individuals, groups, and organizations, to help us send one-off Solidarity Letters to every person incarcerated in Vermont and New Hampshire, including Vermonters who the DOC has forcibly relocated to prisons in Mississippi. The purpose of these letters is to (1) show support for people incarcerated and (2) offer to connect people to resources like Prison Health News, the National Lawyers Guild, Critical Resistance's newsletter, In the Belly, and our penpal program (see Part 2, below).
If you'd like to get involved in Part 1, read the Solidarity Letter Writing Campaign tab for more important information about what to put and what not to put in the letter and a template for the contents. Then, send us an email (letterbyletternhvt@gmail.com) or a message in the box to the right letting us know you've read the guidelines and are ready to start writing letters! We will send you names and addresses. If you are a member of a group or an organization (A book club? A social justice volunteer association? A church?) please consider mobilizing your group to write letters together. Either way, you tell us how many people you (and/or your group) can send letters to and we'll send you that many names and addresses. You send out the letters and confirm with us when all the people have been sent mail! Remember, this is explicitly a one-time commitment, not ongoing correspondence.
Part 2: we are matching people on the inside with people on the outside to be penpals. We'll be using the one-off Solidarity Letters to let people incarcerated know they can request a penpal from us. If they do, we'll ask them a few questions (how often they'd like to write, what their interests are, etc) to match them with someone on the outside! If you or someone you know might want to be a penpal, send us an email (letterbyletternhvt@gmail.com) or a message in the box to the right. Please review the guidelines on the Penpal Program page.
Participating in Part 2 could end up being a life-changing, multi-year commitment - not an endeavor to take lightly. If you're ready, you can sign up here.
If you read over the materials and you still have more questions, please ask!
