DJC x UMAW IIP: Update #2

Aug 4

Greetings everyone!

Ted (DJC Volunteer Coordinator) here with another update on the state of the ongoing DJC x UMAW Instruments Into Prisons campaign!

It has been a couple months since my last update and a good amount has happened. Our donor pool currently holds steady with 97 folks ready and willing to redistribute their gear. (We are still accepting donations, please fill out our intake form and share with your people as well!) After developing a rubric to sort and “grade” pending donations based on several factors, we continue to work through them in tandem with ongoing communication with the prisons (and select musicians inside of them) to match the specific needs/requests from the incarcerated musicians with items available in our donor pool. The fact remains that this process is slow, but steady and generally dictated according to the requests of the facilities, and those inside of them, who often have limitations (for instance lack of computers to work with our hefty amount of generous MIDI and digital audio interface donations.) We also prioritize donations with gear that is “A” rated meaning it is either new or needs no work or repairs done (which are hard to facilitate once inside prison.) That said, we have been able to fulfill 26 out of the 52 specific requests from the facilities we are working with through the donations of 22 separate donors (some of whom fulfilled multiple requests) as well as with funds from our monetary donation pool.

PRISON UPDATES

We continue to strengthen our donation efforts with both Allendale Correctional Facility (South Carolina) as well as Arkansas Valley Correctional (Colorado). Both of these prisons have active DJC recording musicians incarcerated inside. We are in touch with several direct points of contact inside these facilities and continue to assess and fulfill their needs.

In addition, we’ve initiated donation streams with two new facilities: Oshkosh Correctional Facility in Wisconsin, and The Green Hill School in Washington State - our first juvenile facility. Just like Allendale and Arkansas Valley, we will continue to interface with these institutions until their needs are met.

Looking forward, we are also in the process of firming up the details with a few more facilities, San Quentin State Prison in California, Birmingham Women’s Community Based Facility in Alabama, and Echo Glen Children’s Center - another youth facility in Washington State.

*Volunteer Mark Epps makes a gear delivery to Allendale Correctional*

*Shot of the improvised studio space at Allendale.*

GEAR UPDATES

Thanks to our very generous monetary donors, we’ve been able to tap into funds raised in order to donate more nuanced items to both Allendale and Arkansas Valley that had slim chances of showing up in our donor pool.

For the musicians at Allendale we purchased a used Tascam CD-RW900 MKII - a direct-to-CD recording device - that they can employ with their current computer-free recording set-up. (See above photo of the improvised studio at Allendale provided by DJC affiliated producer and recording artist Silent Jungle.) As currently no incarcerated individuals inside of Allendale have access to computers, it is tough for them to produce beats and burn CDs which can then be distributed across the yard for contributing musicians to listen on their own, and compose lyrics. It is essential that musicians are able to have their own CD versions of the beats so that they may be prepared and rehearsed with their respective hooks and verses in order to make the most efficient use of the limited in-studio recording time when it is allotted to them. With the purchase of this CD recorder, accessibility and ease of distribution/replication is restored to the musicians inside.

For Arkansas Valley Correctional, we purchased two items specifically for the ceremonial sweat lodge inside of the prison. DJC artist, E. Brokencoyote referred me to two specific instruments needed for the ceremonies conducted by him and other Native Americans who frequent the sweat lodge: a drum and a Taos rattle, which were recently shipped to the facility.

We continue to encourage folks to contribute to our monetary donation fundraising efforts to help facilitate more indispensable niche purchases such as these! Many deep and heartfelt thanks to those who already have.

*Shot of artist E. Brokencoyote (Arkansas Valley Correctional)*

COALITION BUILDING

Looking forward, we are excited to strengthen this campaign in part by building partnerships with more groups beyond the scope of DJC and the UMAW Abolition subcommittee. We are in contact with two burgeoning UMAW city local union branches (UMAW Los Angeles local and UMAW Philadelphia local.) Both are motivated and engaged groups full of tenacious music workers excited to collaborate and bolster the Instruments Into Prisons campaign. While Philadelphia will have a more independent effort localized to Pennsylvania facilities and primarily in partnership with the Beyond the Bars nonprofit, we have already engaged in robust dialogues and are prepared to share resources and tactics logistical or otherwise in solidarity moving forward. The Los Angeles local branch intends to work more closely with our DJC x Abolition Subcommittee national campaign with a more localized focus on California facilities with the added potential for in-person collection/distribution efforts and/or live events in support of the campaign. I have begun training select members on our donor pool spreadsheet and hope to delegate our forthcoming donation efforts to San Quentin State Prison to their capable team!

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS

In conclusion, we’ve made some great progress over the last few months. Moving forward we hope to pick up even more momentum in terms of gear distribution amount, prison partnerships, and volunteer building. As I mentioned before, please continue to fill out our intake form if you or a friend have an item you’d like to redistribute to a musician on the inside. And if not, feel free to donate too!

Okay, I will leave it there for now. Until the next update, thank you very much and solidarity.

Onward!