Flikshop Wants Every Father in Every Prison to Receive Mail
PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release
Flikshop, the mobile app that connects families back to their incarcerated loved ones via their personalized postcards, wants every father in jail or prison to receive mail during this Father's Day season.
This is the mission of their new mailing campaign "Every Father...Every Facility". Flikshop is partnering with small, local businesses to give away Flikshop Gift Cards to children all across the country who have an incarcerated father. The businesses sponsor the Gift Cards, which are each preloaded with 10 Flikshop credits. The main recipients are part of non-profit organizations that support children with incarcerated parents. Some of these organizations include Scholarchips, US Dream Academy, and Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop.
Flikshop was created to connect those that are incarcerated with their families in order to support their re-entry into society, and the father-child bond is an important part of that. "Being a father has been the greatest blessing of my life, so I couldn't imagine what the fathers in prison are going through with not being able to see their children.", says Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop.
2.7 million children, around half of whom are under 10, have a parent in jail or prison. Experts are recognizing this data as an “adverse childhood experience”, which can increase the likelihood of health and social problems as an adult. But this data does not depict the phenomena that you see when you walk into some elementary and middle schools around the country. The rates of incarceration and the spikes in children with parents that have served time in prison at one point in their lives is a normal part of growing up. “Most of the teens in my classroom at New Beginnings [Youth Detention Facility] can tell you a story of how they once wrote a letter to their dad that was locked up.”, says Bullock. “The first thing I tell them is that I’ve been locked up and my father was locked up when I was younger too."
There are developing methods to combat this phenomena, and support from trained agencies is one of them. Flikshop reduces the the isolation that a family feels from their loved one while they are in prison, which is why it was important to partner with organizations that have experience in this field. During this special time of year for fathers, a simple gift card can give children the chance to join in with their peers in celebrating, sending any father in any facility a Flikshop postcard.
Flikshop has had success with other mailing campaigns. Music celebrity John Legend partnered with the company to help with his mission of connecting families during the Holiday Season. The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) is supporting Flikshop’s latest mission of connecting children back to their families. It is hoped that the partnership with CFYJ will strengthen the joint purpose of keeping children away from isolation. (See “Solitary Confinement is a Cauldron Meant to Destroy“ by Flikshop CEO, Marcus Bullock and colleague Dwayne Betts)
Do you want to help in our mission to make"Every Father...Every Facility" a success? Donate Flikshop Gift Cards to families that have an incarcerated parent. Each Flikshop Gift Card that you order will be given directly to the representative of one of our sponsored organizations.
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