Dear neighbors,

On Giving Tuesday, I’m reaching out to ask for your help supporting some mutual aid work that is very important to me. 

As you may know from previous listserv posts, I organize with Jailbreak, an autonomous group that provides free support to people inside or coming out of Allegheny County Jail and other PA prisons. You can learn more about us at jailbreakpgh.org. We’re basically a group of local people who refuse to look away from the harrowing cruelty and violence of incarceration and believe that the best way to help people who need money is to give them money. 

In 2021, we redistributed more than $30,000 to incarcerated people and people returning from prison. 

As of 11/29/21, we have spent:

--$12,195 on commissary for people on the inside

--$9,447 on housing, transportation, and related necessities for recently released people

--$8,439 on bails, fines, and legal fees.

Commissary (which includes hygiene products, over the counter medications, clothes, phone calls and emails) is our biggest expense. Everything costs money in prison, and, in PA, if you’re able to get a job, you get to make between 19 and 42 cents an hour, with a highest possible wage of $1 an hour. People have sent us letters asking for help, because they can’t afford to buy soap. 

We also help people coming out of jail put down security deposits on apartments, pay for rooms in halfway houses, and get to and from mandatory appointments, among other things. When you have no safety net, these expenses are a matter of life and death. 

Please consider sending us money so we can redistribute it to people in and just out of prison who need it to survive. 

Venmo: @jailbreakpgh

Cashapp: $FindEachOther

Paypal: paypal.me/jbreak412

(We also accept checks and cash, if those electronic payment systems don’t work for you)

Thanks for your time and for joining us in this work. 

In Solidarity, 

Jordana from Jailbreak