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About a week after his 15th birthday, Marcus Bullock was sentenced to eight years in a maximum security prison. As the weight of this reality set in, Bullocks’ mother promised to write to him to lift his spirits and continue a connection to her young teenage son’s life outside prison walls.
“I told her, don’t come visit me anymore. I’m not going to call you, don’t write to me, just start grieving now because I’m not going to make it out. It’s just not realistic,” Bullock recalls about the hopelessness he felt. “She came to visit me that very next weekend and said ‘Boy, you lost your mind if you think I’m going to let you go to prison culture.’ She made me a promise on that visit that she was gonna write me a letter, or send me a picture every day from that day forward for the remaining six years of my prison sentence.”
Inspired by the hope these letters and photos gave to him and others in prison alongside him, Bullock went on to offer that same sense of hope to others. After his release he wanted a way to communicate quickly and affordably with his friends who were still behind bars. D.C.-based Flikshop was soon born out of this simple desire to share life with others, and Bullock, the organization’s CEO, made this new form of communication possible alongside his team.
The concept of Flikshop is simple – through the app or website, upload any photo you wish to share. Then you can write a personalized message, and when you’re done just hit “send postcard,” and your message is sent out on the next business day for 99 cents. If you want to contribute to Flikshop’s efforts, there’s even an option to be a “Flikshop Angel” and purchase a gift card for someone to use to send messages to their incarcerated loved ones.
Read more via District Fray Magazine https://bit.ly/3wQymJQ