March birthday cards, fundraising, and more

Dear community,

Join us in sending Birthday cards to all of our incarcerated LGBTQ+ and HIV+ community members in California who have birthdays in March. We do this to remind our inside family that they are loved and that we are together in this fight for our collective liberation.

If you can sign up to send a card or two (or 10) from home, please fill out this form. We will send you the address(es) - and some tips if it’s your first time.

You will need to provide your own stamps and supplies, though we have *plenty* of both and can absolutely coordinate to get you some, if needed - just let us know!

Please send pics of your cute cards to flyingoverwalls[at]gmail[dot]com to be featured in future event invites!

***BECOME A PENPAL****

It is always a great time to become a penpal. If you want to start a penpal relationship, you can learn more and sign-up here anytime: https://blackandpinkpenpals.org/

Or if you want us to match you with a penpal, just reach out to us! Or check out our instagram page where we highlight potential penpals (@FlyingOverWalls).

Once you become a penpal, you can join this fb group to stay connected to other outside penpals for support and resources: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackandpinkpenpalsupport/


***COMMUNITY NEWS & EVENTS***

Help us raise funds for a longtime Bay Area Black and Pink member, Piper. Piper was recently released from incarceration and is a white intersex trans woman. She was kicked out of the homeless shelter due to transphobia from other patrons and needs money to pay for the motel she is staying in and for food. She pays 80 dollars a night for the motel and doesn’t have money for food so the current goal is to raise enough for a month at the motel including cost of food. She is very outgoing and her interests include practicing Wicca. Click here to donate to the GoFundMe page. Anything helps! Thank you so much!

Monthly mail nights:

• Critical Resistance Oakland hosts volunteer nights on Tuesday evenings from 6-9pm.  They offer an orientation to their work each Tuesday at 7pm. If you’re interested in coming to volunteer night and learning more about the chapter or offering a hand, please contact: croakland@criticalresistance.org.
• PLP - has been doing books to prisoners nights - check out https://www.prisonlit.org/volunteer/ for info on volunteering.

Our partner collective, A.B.O. Comix, publishes the work of incarcerated queer and trans people with profits going back to them and their families. They have comic anthologies written and drawn by LGBTQ+ prisoners, including Confined Before COVID-19, as well as zines, artwork and merch. You can support the artists and buy copies for yourself or your penpals here.

***SUPPORT OUR CHAPTER***

We'd love to have you join our local leadership team and be a part of the behind-the-scenes of making Flying Over Walls happen! We meet monthly to plan events and projects and build our inside and outside leadership teams. To get involved, email us.

You can donate here to support our local chapter, and we will continue to prioritize using these funds to support our incarcerated members as well as any support we can offer to our formerly incarcerated community.


We have shirts (sliding scale $15-30) and tote bags (sliding scale $5-20) available by donation!
 
In solidarity,
FoW