You have received this email because you have either volunteered or otherwise been associated with the Casa de Paz pen pal program at some point in the last couple of years. Many of you have contacted us to ask about the status of the pen pal program, and we have some good news to pass along in that regard.
History of the Casa de Paz pen pal program
Prior to the pandemic, Casa de Paz had a robust visitation program. By early March 2020, over 100 volunteers were regularly visiting immigrants detained in the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, doing their best to help ease the pain of isolation for people in immigration prison. In mid-March 2020 and due to the pandemic, ICE stopped allowing volunteers to visit detained immigrants, so a team of Casa volunteers converted the visitation program into a pen pal program. From March of 2020 through December 2021, nearly 600 Casa volunteers wrote to over 900 immigrants detained in 39 detention centers in 15 states around the country. Volunteers from 2 countries and over 30 states participated in the program, and nearly $25,000 in commissary money was distributed to immigrants to whom we wrote. Please know that the Casa leadership team is deeply grateful for the volunteers who have participated in this program and that we fully support the program as an essential part of Casa’s mission to offer peace in the midst of chaos to those being detained.
Changes in Casa leadership & the impact on the pen pal program
You are likely aware of the recent leadership changes at Casa de Paz; if not, you can read the messages from Casa leadership sent on March 19 and March 29.
On January 2 and prior to Sarah Jackson leaving Casa de Paz, Sarah asked Greg Mortimer to step down from his leadership role on the pen pal coordinator team. She expressed her intention to pause the pen pal program but did not share her motivation for doing so or provide information about how to absorb Greg’s responsibilities. Due to the lack of clarity, the remaining members of the pen pal coordinator team resigned their positions a few days after Greg’s departure.
Andrea Loya - Casa de Paz executive director - attempted to coordinate the program by herself, but the workload was too large to absorb in addition to her other responsibilities. Eventually, Andrea was forced to put the pen pal coordinator duties aside while assisting with the challenging work of implementing a leadership change for Casa de Paz.
Many of you have expressed your frustration over the lack of communication with volunteers over the last several months, and we sincerely apologize for the confusion this has caused. We were not able to reach an agreement with Sarah regarding the future direction of the pen pal program. As a result, we were not in a position to provide clear communication about these changes, which resulted in a communication void. Again, we sincerely apologize.
Relaunch of the pen pal program
Last month, we asked the pen pal coordinator team to help us relaunch the pen pal program, and they have agreed to do so. We are working on the logistics of the relaunch, and plan to provide more details within the next week or so. In the meantime, we have an update and some volunteer opportunities to share with you:
Letters to you from your friends in detention
We are deeply saddened to share that over the last few weeks, we have not had the capacity to scan letters from immigrants and email them to the Casa volunteers for whom the letters are intended, and there are currently over 100 undelivered letters. Wayne and Aldondra Flores have agreed to immediately resume scanning & emailing letters to volunteers, and we anticipate that they will be able to work through the backlog of letters within the next week. Going forward, Wayne and Aldondra will be sharing the duties of scanning & emailing letters to volunteers.
An invitation to join the pen pal coordinator team
The logistics of coordinating the pen pal program are pretty involved, so we are looking for additional volunteers to help with the coordination work. We have provided links to role descriptions for which we need additional assistance:
If you have time and are interested in helping with any of these tasks, please let us know by completing this form.
Next steps and your questions
We hope to complete the relaunch of the program within the next 1 - 2 weeks and will share more details with you soon.
In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to our team lead, Greg Mortimer, at greg.mortimer@gmail.com.
A Big Thank You!
Finally, we want to acknowledge the hard work and effort of our coordinating team who have diligently worked to start this program and are now assisting to reboot it: Rachel Draeger, Joanie Kindblade, Wayne Laws, Stephanie Madzey, Greg Mortimer, and Maria Ogneva. We also want to welcome our newest team member, Aldondra Flores, for jumping in and helping with the heavy lifting of the reboot! Thank you all for your hard work and dedication!
A special thank you to Greg Mortimer for his vision, commitment, and faithfulness to Casa De Paz and all of its programs. We are very grateful to you for leading the charge on this program and for your ongoing, unwavering support.
To all of our Casa Community - thank you for all you have done in support of immigrants in detention - we truly appreciate you!
Gracias!
Casa De Paz Leadership Team
Andrea Loya, Executive Director
Claudia Villa, President, Casa De Paz Board of Directors
Maria Caro, Treasurer, Casan De Paz Board of Directors
