Yale Prison Education Initiative Fundraiser

**This year, 10 donors who make a contribution of $10 or more before Giving Tuesday (12/1/20 at midnight ET) will be selected at random to receive a YPEI sweatshirt!

Thank you for supporting the Yale Prison Education Initiative at Dwight Hall. 

Your gift directly advances our efforts to expand access to rigorous, high-quality college learning for incarcerated students in Connecticut. Read more about our program at this link.

As we navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, we remain as committed to serving our students as ever. We have found new opportunities to include YPEI students in the life of the university and to bring academic life to them, including through correspondence-based programming with Yale faculty and students and analog ways for students to participate remotely in Zoom events – all while we explore future possibilities for expanded remote learning.

Here are a few of our accomplishments from the last year:

• We launched a slate of innovative correspondence-based programming, including a new Creative Writing Workshop initiated in the summer of 2020, operating through weekly mail-in packets, since students in prison do not have access to the Internet. The Creative Writing workshop is guest curated by prominent writers and scholars from around the country, and continues through the 2020-2021 academic year. Read more at this link.
  
• We have received acknowledgment and support from across Yale's campus. Yale President Peter Salovey highlighted YPEI in this year's matriculation address to incoming graduate students at Yale. Yale's School of Art, Department of English, Department of African American Studies, and Theater & Performance Studies Program all pledged or called for support of YPEI in recent public statements. And in October, the Yale Faculty of Arts & Sciences Senate passed a historic resolution of support for YPEI.
• We continue to support students within and beyond the classroom through resource-sharing efforts like our revamped YPEI Jobs Board, assistance with reentry, research support, helping students build resumes, and partnerships with Yale programs and centers and local and regional community organizations.

This is a crucial moment for us. We are working hard to solidify, sustain, and strengthen our program, and grow our impact in prisons. Even with the limitations of the pandemic, we have found ways to reach more people inside; for instance, students can request extra mailed copies of any course materials so that they are empowered to create their own learning pods and discussion groups within their units. In the words of one YPEI student, “The biggest benefit of YPEI is not found in the classrooms, but in the cellblocks. YPEI has empowered a group of men dedicated to educating and liberating their peers from the bondage of ignorance. In this way, the classrooms only plant the seed; it grows and blooms inside the prison.” 

In this moment of intense human interdependence, your donation to YPEI can make an immediate and positive difference for many.

For more information about our Initiative or to learn how to get involved, visit our website or contact us at ypei@dwighthall.org.

Thank you for your support.