What we've been up to... and ways you can get involved.

1. Building relationships with penpals. All of RedBird's work is based on communication, requests and ideas of Ohio prisoners. We have a list of prisoners seeking penpals. If you'd like to write to someone, let us know and we'll help you make a connection. 

2. Working with Ohio prisoners who have been targeted for greater repression because of their political affiliations or actions. We have connected with a number of these prisoners, who are ready and waiting for a larger movement in Ohio to join forces in struggle.

3. Creating a website that demands amnesty for people serving time in relation to the Lucasville Uprising. We're working with prisoners involved as well as Staughten and Alice Lynd, the activist lawyers who wrote the book on Lucasville and have worked tirelessly on the subject. This website will likely be finalized and go public in the next few weeks.

4. Coordinating our efforts with those at RedBird Books to Prisoners to keep packing and sending books in to prisoners in Ohio and elsewhere. Book packing is the first and third Sunday of every month in the basement of the Spore at 172 E 5th Ave. We're also developing and adding to the zines and legal resources offered.

5. Creating and offering workshops. Currently we have workshops on the following subjects:
-How prison impacts communities
-The Lucasville Uprising
-Security Culture
-How to file a FOIA (freedom of information act) request.
We're able to prepare workshops on other prison related subjects with notice. If you're interested in hosting a workshop on any of those subjects, we'd love to help! We'll soon be taking one of these workshops to the Breaking Bars Building Bridges conference in Waterloo, ON.

6. Amplifying the voices of Ohio prisoners. We call or write public officials with grievances that prisoners have raised. We publish prisoner articles, letters, and essays to the internet and submit them to print publications.

7. Letter writing night. We've been trying different days and locations to establish a night for getting together and writing letters to prisoners, offering connections to Ohio prisoners, queer prisoners, and political prisoners. Currently letter writing nights are planned for the 3rd tuesday of every month at Kafe Kerouac.

8. Planning events like prisoner art shows, solidarity showcases, and other fundraisers, including the performance and nation-wide tour of Insurgent Theatre's In the Belly.

9. Supporting others' efforts, from death penalty abolition, to hunger strikes,  to ban-the-box, to a New Year's Eve Noise Demo  and creating dialog about prison at other political events. We are prison abolitionists, but we support reformist efforts as one of many avenues to improving prisoner's lives and making it harder for the state to maintain this prison system.