Support Building it Together!

Grassroots Fundraiser for:

Building it Together

Mission

Building It Together is a collective of currently and formerly incarcerated people and allies in Connecticut joining abolitionist organizing to community-led mutual aid, political education, and building transformative resources and structures for self-determination and collective power with our communities across the walls. We are here to build the long future of our movements for abolition and liberation.

Building it Together has received a Community Organizing Grant from the Peace Development Fund and all of the money raised from this fundraiser will be added to that grant to help support their organizing in 2022.  Give today to support Building it Together!

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Your support will help us to advance two crucial campaigns--a parole bill that would free many who have been incarcerated since they were youth and a campaign to close Osborn Correctional Institution, one of the deadliest prisons in Connecticut and a Superfund site where tetrachloroethylene (PCE) has been contaminating the groundwater. We began this campaign because of the demands of our organizers inside. To grow abolitionist political education and media led by people incarcerated and our communities, we are developing a new podcast--Resilience Behind the Walls--that will highlight the experiences and organizing of those directly impacted by the PIC in direct relation to our campaigns—for example, the stories of people who developed cancer because of their incarceration in Osborn and the families of those who died in incarceration over the pandemic. We will be developing zines on public health and the prison industrial complex for mass dissemination inside to empower abolitionist organizing in prisons across the state. To grow community-led systems of care, we are developing community learning circles on trauma to build people-led (not institutionally-determined) understandings of trauma and non-carceral responses to trauma & systemic trauma in our communities.

Can you share a story of one of the leaders in your organization and how they’ve made a difference in their community?

"Fran son has been behind the walls for the past 12 years. Not only has she been the main advocate for her son's freedom but she has become the main support for other families who are in the same or worst situations with rallying support and resources for their loved one behind the walls. Not only has "Fran '' son started building positive relationships with a group of men inside that desire to come home and make a positive and healthy impact on the community, but his mother has built a similar connection with other families going through their struggles. Through such a dark situation, the beauty of building real community inside and outside has taken place. It is so inspiring to see these communities coming together to form one family of support for each other."

Building it Together is a participant in Grassroots Funding Week, a week-long crowdfunding campaign that supports several social justice organizations from across the country. 

Click on the links below to read about other organizations participating in Grassroots Funding Week. 

Monday: Racial Justice - A Movement, Not a Moment! 

Building it Together - New Haven, CT

Ohio Families Unite Against Police Brutality - Dayton, OH

New Britain Racial Justice Coalition - New Britain, CT

Tuesday: Building Power in the US South 

Black Life Response - New Orleans, LA

Fountain Heights Farm - Birmingham, AL

No Exceptions - Nashville, TN 

Wednesday: Indigenous Community Resilience

Lakota Well Being Project - McLaughlin, SD

People of the Confluence - Bothell, WA 

Seeds of Harmony - Round Rock, AZ

Thursday: Taking Back Our Bodies 

Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Gender Justice - National 

The Queer-Trans Project - Atlantic Beach, FL

Tight Lipped - National

Friday: Investing in a Just Economy 

The Womanist Working Collective - Philadelphia, PA

Fuerza Latina (Fort Collins Community Action Network) - Fort Collins, CO

Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust - Chelsea, MA 

Home Roots Foundation - Jean Rebel and Belle Fontaine, Haiti

Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores - New Bedford, MA 

For more information, visit: www.peacedevelopmentfund.org 

The Peace Development Fund (PDF) works to build the capacity of community-based organizations through grants, training and other resources as partners in human rights and social justice movements. Support PDF's mission and grant-making with your gift today!