IPNO‘s Monday Memo:

Your help is invaluable

You–our supporters–are absolutely inspirational. Even during these trying and uncertain times, when we ask for your help, you show up ready to help protect our clients and other vulnerable individuals at risk of contracting the coronavirus.

• Thanks to you, we collected 3,585 cloth, washable, reusable masks, and delivered them to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPS&C) to keep our clients and other incarcerated people as safe as possible during COVID-19’s spread in prisons. We have recently learned that  85% of women imprisoned in a female prison have tested positive for the coronavirus and 3/4 of them are asymptomatic, heightening the importance of the usage of masks to protect others in prisons and in our communities.

• Our supporters generously gave during #GivingTuesdayNOW, an emergency giving day in response to the unprecedented need caused by COVID-19, to help ensure that our work continues. With these funds, we will provide soap and other sanitation items to our incarcerated clients, resources and support to our elderly freed clients, and will continue to fight to free innocent individuals from prison before it is too late.

We must keep fighting and we need your help!

• Please continue to call Governor John Bel Edwards to urge him to sign clemency petitions that have been on his desk for months.
• Please support IPNO on June 2nd for the community-wide GiveNOLA Day, which is now open for giving. If you missed last week or would like to support us again, you can schedule your gift in advance here.
• We are continuing to collect masks to distribute in prisons in Louisiana. For more information, click here.