The informal, prisoner-led writing club at South Central Correctional Facility in Tennessee has a dozen or so members. Earlier in 2026 we were huddled around a table discussing that week’s reading when 78-year-old Dave rolled up in his wheelchair.
“Y’all know how to write,” he said. “So can you help me write to my daughter?”
It turned out that Dave, incarcerated for the past 40-plus years, had never learned to read or write. Decades ago he had tried to send his daughter a letter, but it got sent back, and without knowing how to contact her he’d given up.
The writing club helped him compose a letter. A few weeks later, he got one back:
Dave’s daughter now visits him often. He’s gotten to meet his three grandkids. This sparked the writing club to begin helping others in Dave’s position write similar letters (always checking first that the courts have not restricted contact with the recipient). As a result, more than a dozen men have reconnected with their families. If it’s not possible for someone to physically write the letter then a writing club member will put pen to paper for them and add a disclosure that the handwriting is not the author’s, but for the most part we’ve been able to support people in writing out their letters themselves.
A lot of pain has been healed at the crochet club table.
When people saw Travis and Jeremy crocheting hats and scarves to send to family members on the outside, they asked to commission a few items to send to their own families. Travis and Jeremy always asked if they’d like to learn the skill themselves, and soon there was a full circle of big burly men crocheting and talking about their lives.
A lot of pain has been healed at that table. More recently the group crocheted enough hats and scarves to send to a homeless shelter in Nashville. They’re currently working on crocheted animals that will go to kids in the foster care system over the holidays.
Each night Corey and Matt, both military veterans, can be seen working out together around the unit. They do burpees in the dayroom. They climb over the railing in front of the upper tier of cells and use the ledge as a pull-up bar. They have fashioned a barbell out of a broom handle and two water bags. A sign they posted in the unit reads:
Soon they were leading a group of trainees through military-style exercises. Many of those who joined were taking medication for high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes. After eight weeks, the eight guys who’d stuck with Corey and Matt’s workouts had lost an average of 20 lbs each and in some cases no longer needed their medications. Corey and Matt’s boot camp has a waiting list now.
Many of the men in my living unit, including myself, are over 60. A couple are in their 90s. They use wheelchairs and walkers, and have mostly outlived the friends and family they had on the outside. They are unable to earn even a few cents an hour through prison jobs, and have no one else to support them, yet they still need money for basics like food and toiletries, and batteries for hearing aids. Denture cream is one of the most expensive hygiene items sold at commissary, at around $9.
Prisoners with a balance of zero on their account are eligible to receive a free hygiene pack once a month. This pack includes a small container of body wash, a small razor, a small toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. Not enough for a month for anyone, young or old.
A few years back I began ordering whatever essentials I could afford for the older men in my living unit, and soon formed a mutual aid collective with others who were moved to do the same. We try to be present in their lives, ensure that they’ve been able to bathe or that their bedding gets changed and cleaned, or sometimes read to those who never learned how or can no longer see well. But the financial need was much greater than we could meet with our own funds, and so we began writing letters and making calls to friends on the street. Over time we’ve managed to pair up many of the older folks in need with a “sponsor” in the free world, someone willing to help them with their basic needs and perhaps be a pen pal.
Something remarkable is that all of these services are being offered for free.
Sponsors don’t always last, and so there’s a never-ending campaign of letters and calls. But we remember our own fathers and grandfathers, and can’t imagine them being mistreated or forgotten.
After three decades of incarceration I’m becoming one of these old men myself, my body debilitated by heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure. These days my fingers can barely feel the pen in my hand. Building community in prison can be a source of purpose, and even joy, but for me at least it’s never been a completely selfless endeavor; I’ve always quietly hoped that the eldercare collective would still be there when the day comes that I need someone to read to me or make sure I have denture cream, too.
Something remarkable is that all of these services are being offered for free. Everyone in prison needs to hustle to survive, and on the outside it would be customary to charge for many of these things anyway. But these communities all began with someone just trying to make prison bearable, or to grow as a person, and finding that others around them were trying to do the same. The impulse to lend a helping hand, even in a place of such deprivation, reminds us all that we’re human.
My mamma was a great cook. The vegetables we grew on our small plot of land kept us fed, but without much to spare. A pot of vegetable soup with some cornbread was a great prize at the end of the day of farm labor. One day she accidentally over-salted the soup. We couldn’t afford to throw it out, and so as I watched, puzzled, she peeled two potatoes and dropped them into the pot to simmer. An hour later she fished them back out, tasted the broth, and declared it perfect. I learned her lesson—that there are ways of working with what we have, and that some things are too valuable to throw away.
Image (cropped) via Oregon Department of Corrections