If you’ve noticed things have been a little quieter than usual around here, you’re not wrong.
Like many volunteer-run organizations, sometimes we have to step back from talking about the work in order to do the work. Over the past several months, we’ve been focused on program development, partnerships, volunteers, grant applications, and building new tools that will help us serve more people.
The good news? We’ve got a lot to share.
North Carolina Field Visit Funded
We’re excited to announce that Adopt an Inmate recently received grant funding to support a field visit to North Carolina later this year.
The trip will allow us to connect with organizations and individuals doing important work in the areas of incarceration, reentry, and community support. We’re especially looking forward to learning from others, sharing ideas, and building relationships that can strengthen our own programs.
If you’re in North Carolina, we’d love to connect while we’re there. We’re still finalizing the itinerary and meeting schedule, but we’ll share more details as those plans come together. One of the things we’re most excited about is the opportunity to meet people face-to-face – volunteers, supporters, partner organizations, and members of our community whom we’ve only known through letters, phone calls, emails, and social media.
We spend so much of our work connecting across distances. It’s a special thing when those connections can happen in person.
Letters From Prison: In the Classroom
One of the projects we’re most excited about is the continued development of Letters From Prison: In the Classroom, a program that connects students and incarcerated individuals through education, dialogue, and shared learning.
As part of that effort, students in an Occupational Therapy program are currently developing an OT Survival Handbook for Prisoners – a practical resource designed to help people navigate challenges related to health, routines, pain management, stress, and daily life while incarcerated.
The handbook is still in development, but we’re eager to share more as it progresses.
New Volunteer Workspace
We are incredibly grateful to The Friends Church in Eugene for generously providing meeting space for our volunteer work sessions through the end of the year.
Having a consistent location for volunteer gatherings will help us train new volunteers, process applications, organize projects, and continue building community around this work.
Community support like this makes a tremendous difference for a small, volunteer-powered organization.
Blueprint App Nearing Completion
Many of you have heard us talk about the Blueprint matching app we’ve been developing in partnership with students from UC Berkeley.
We’re happy to report that the project is nearing completion.
While we still have testing and final refinements ahead of us, we’re getting closer to launching a new system that will make the matching process more efficient, accessible, and user-friendly for future adopters.
We’re not ready to announce a launch date just yet – but we’re getting close.
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Bee-Fest Is Coming
August will bring another opportunity for our community to gather, connect, and support the work of Adopt an Inmate.
More details about this year’s Bee-Fest (our annual volunteer gathering) will be coming soon, including ways to participate and support the event. Every dollar raised helps us continue connecting people in prison with volunteers who care.
What’s Coming This Week
We’re also excited to get back into a more regular rhythm of blogging and storytelling.
This week we’ll be sharing several reflections, stories, and conversations inspired by the work we do every day, including some thoughts about language, justice, and the assumptions hidden inside the words we use.
We’re looking forward to the conversation.
As always, thank you for being part of this community. Whether you’ve volunteered, donated, shared a post, written a letter, or simply followed along, you help make this work possible.
We’re glad to be back.
💬 Your turn:
Have a story, insight, or reflection of your own? Scroll down and leave a comment – we’d love to hear from you.
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