Hand Sanitizer Campaign: #sanitizerinside

The Illinois Coalition for Higher Education in Prison (IL-CHEP) is currently collecting funds to distribute hand sanitizer to help stop the spread of COVID 19 within Illinois prisons. This fundraising campaign is working with a Peoria-based distillery to produce hand sanitizer that will be donated to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) to be passed out among people who are incarcerated and staff.

Just this morning, IL-CHEP delivered 100 gallons of hand sanitizer to Lincoln Correctional Center’s warehouse, in the first of several planned deliveries. From here, IDOC will distribute hand sanitizer among its facilities. This means that individuals living and working in IDOC facilities will have access to at least one means of protecting themselves from the deadly COVID-19 disease. While providing hand sanitizer is a step toward keeping people who are incarcerated safe from disease, the best action would be to decarcerate: releasing people, especially the elderly and infirm, back home to their families.

ACT NOW

You can donate to the fundraising campaign, where 100% of proceeds will go toward manufacturing more hand sanitizer.

Please feel free to share this image on social media, and use the hashtag #sanitizerinside when you do.

Illinois prisons are already being hit with cases of COVID 19. Prisons do not have the capacity to implement the CDC’s social distancing protocols. While people around the state, including those organizing with IL-CHEP and the Freedom to Learn Campaign IL, push for decarceration, it is also essential that people who are currently incarcerated have the ability to keep themselves a little safer. Please consider donating to this important cause.