Lawrence Anarchist Black Cross Considering End of Lit Distro

Dec. 30, 2006 news.infoshop.org

Friends and Supporters of Lawrence ABC,

In 2006, Lawrence ABC has sent over 3,000 pieces of free literature to prisoners across the country. Unfortunately, due to declining support, last spring we began to limit our distribution to male prisoners in Kansas, Missouri, Oregon, the Polunsky Unit in Texas, as well as to female prisoners in any state. Even with these cutbacks, we do not have the funds to send reading material to all of the prisoners who request it.

It has been many months since we have come to you asking for donations to run our lit distribution. In the time that we have not been actively soliciting donations, we have received only a few contributions. The number of people working to fill the requests is very small; one person does most of the work with sporadic help from a few others.

After much soul-searching, the main organizer of the lit distro has come to the conclusion that things must change if the distro is going to survive. If these changes do not happen, LABC will end the lit distro by the summer of 2007.

What does LABC need to keep the lit distro functioning?

Our greatest need is money. We either need individuals to commit to giving us a certain amount of money each month, or we need folks organizing fundraisers for us every couple of months. Of course, a combination of these two ways of raising money would also work. The members of LABC have not been able to both fill lit requests and raise the money that we need to pay for the expenses of sending the lit. We have also found it is not sustainable to try to pay for all of our expenses out of our own pockets. This project needs to be supported financially by the larger community if it is going to continue.

Less urgent but also helpful would be people who can commit to helping fill lit requests each week. We need to train one or two people who could agree to spend a couple of hours each week at a specified time on a specified day working to fill lit requests. A couple of dependable and reliable people helping fill requests could help ease the burden we now face.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with the LABC lit distro since we started it in 2002. We appreciate all the time and money that friends and supporters have put into this project. Even if the project ends, we will still consider it a success because it helped hundreds of prisoners learn and grow.

Checks and money orders made payable to Lawrence ABC and well-concealed cash can be sent to P. O. Box 1483 Lawrence, KS 66044

Donations via paypal can be sent using the email address cajungal@mutualaid.org

Questions can be sent to abclawrence@riseup.net

Best wishes,
Lawrence ABC