Social Justice Fund: Let's Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee
Attendees of the opening night of the Let's Get Free art show held in November 2021. Photo courtesy of The Brew House.
The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Social Justice Fund awarded $25,000 to Let’s Get Free: The Women & Trans Prisoner Defense Committee in 2021. The organization is motivated by an ethos of reducing harm and violence as a Women and Trans Prisoner Defense committee.
Let’s Get Free: The Women & Trans Prisoner Defense Committee works to end perpetual punishment with a focus on ending death by incarceration. The organization builds pathways out of prisons back to communities through case management services for people who were formally incarcerated in addition to advocating for commutation reform. The committee, which is guided by people who are currently incarcerated, primarily serves women and trans prisoners, whose experiences are often left out of conversations about mass incarceration. Let's Get Free uses art as an organizational tool and, through education, aims to shift cultural understandings around harm, healing and justice.
The Social Justice Fund focuses on providing support for organizations engaged in advocacy, mobilization and healing work. Since its launch in 2018, SJF has awarded many organizations with necessary funding.