Prisons - the easy part

Once you start looking at misery that is built into structure, it can be pretty discouraging. Figuring out what can be done, and what part you can play in that is hard.

That may be one reason that so much of how we give can be personal. I have my specific resources, and I can broaden some things, but there are things that I definitely can't do, at least definitely not at this time. So maybe sometimes instead of fighting the structure I am just alleviating one thing for one person, and that is still valuable.

I'm not going to try and sort out Christ-like activism today, but if you want to do something helpful for those in prison, I can share some ideas for that.

First, broaden your mind. You might think this is a totally alien issue, but don't be so sure that you don't know anyone in prison. My friend went. Someone I went to school with is in now. Other people from school that I knew better have spent time in jail. A neighbor's son, whom I do know, is in now.

There is a lot of stigma attached to jail, so it is easy to avoid talking about it, and then to feel like it's something that affects other people.

I will even go a step beyond that and admit that some of them might not be great to communicate with, because there are some pretty manipulative and dangerous people in there. That is true, but it is not the whole truth. Use your judgment and discretion, but use it after you have learned more, and not as a reason to shut off your compassion before you have even thought about it.

First of all I go to Prison Culture again:

http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2017/11/15/help-criminalized-survivors-of-violence-for-the-holidays/

If you go to the Amazon wishlist for incarcerated survivors of interpersonal violence, it looks like there is only a need for one notebook now, but on the sidebar I see other lists, and the book drive for California prisoners could use some help too:

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/342NY9MRYCWGB/ref=cm_go_nav_hz

Still from Prison Culture, you can donate to help reunite families for Christmas visits through STEPS:

https://egscf.crm.salsalabs.org/webDonation/

Just Detention fights prison rape. Donations can be helpful, and sometimes there are opportunities to send encouraging messages. You can learn more about them here:

https://justdetention.org/

Those are the only two that I have personal knowledge of, but Charity Navigator gave a high score to Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison:

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=14635

That doesn't mean that there aren't more out there. There may be small charities that don't get rated, or still good work without meeting all of the criteria used by the rating system. The best thing you can do may be finding that person from school or church or family that needs to be remembered more.

I do believe that once you commit to helping, you find ways, and that it is fine if they start small.