Dear Pelipost Company,
Hello there – I hope that the entire staff are doing well. This may come as a surprise, because this is simply just a letter. I know it’s a bit unorthodox, but I really wanted to send you all a letter, and simply say thank you. Your business makes it very easy for my friends and family to send me pictures, and that is a huge blessing.
You recently sent out a flyer with a picture of the staff holding up signs saying, “Happy Love Your Inmate Day!” with a very touching message in the back. It’s nice to know the story of your company, and know that you understand firsthand how important it is to get mail/pictures when you’re doing time. Unless you experience it first hand, you could never fully understand the heartbreak in a person’s face when they go to the mail call, and at the end, their name is not called. It’s a heartbreaking sight— like you said in your flyer, even though we are incarcerated, we are still human, and still have feelings. We most definitely still want to feel connected and included to the outside world. COVID has infected the entire world, and the impacts are felt in here. We have been on COVID lockdown for over a year and half now. The first year with no visits allowed. They do allow visits now, but it’s no contact and six feet apart with a face mask. With the Delta variant going around, we could go back to no visitation at all very soon, thus making receiving pictures at mail time so important.
I have been down for over ten years now. With that much time down people on the outside tend to draft away. It’s an out of sight, out of mind sort of thing. Mail calls for me have been slim to none lately, and it honestly has had me down these past couple of weeks. Between worrying about the pandemic and my parents’ health out there, and being locked up with no mail coming in, I was in my feelings in a bad way. Then last week, I received your flyer for Love Your Inmate Day, with the teaching message and the group photo. It honestly touched me, and I’m not afraid to share that it made me shed a few tears— of joy of course.
Your flyer let me know I was not “forgotten” by the outside world— even as corny as that sounds. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the entire Pelipost company and staff, know that you all are doing a great thing and making positive impacts. You make us feel that we are still human, and that we still matter. Though we all made mistakes to land us in here — our mistakes do not define who we are. There is always a bigger story. Thank you again everyone, I truly hope you and all your families are doing well and staying healthy. By the way, thank you for letting me share what was on my heart.
Take care and keep smiling.
Always,
Johnny
“A man is so much more than his worst mistake.”