EPA’s Prison Ministry & Restorative Justice Team’s Toiletry Bowl ends August 15, and they are hoping many more generous souls will go to the Amazon website gift list and buy toiletries of competing brands to donate to people incarcerated in Philadelphia’s Prison System.

EPA members, along with supporters in Greater New Jersey and elsewhere, are asked to participate. Purchased toiletries will be shipped Grove UMC in West Chester, and the Rev. Marilyn Schneider, who leads the campaign, will deliver them to Chaplain Carmelo Urena, head chaplain of Philadelphia’s Prison System.

Urena requested the toiletries for prisoners who receive only meager, travel-size toiletries when they arrive to serve their sentences. Many lack the resources–including family support–to purchase more needed toiletries from the commissary. He invites us to join his prison chaplaincy staff in this small act of mercy that can make a big difference in the lives of the thousands of prisoners he serves.

Schneider will soon report another colorful update on the competition between toiletry brands. Anyone can impact the competition, or more pointedly, “impact the lives of people entering incarceration in the Philadelphia prison system,” she said. But the deadline is August 15. So please go online now to the Amazon gift list at https://tinyurl.com/toiletry-bowl, and make your purchases for delivery to EPAUMC Prison Ministry. Read “EPA partners with chaplain to ‘remember those who are in prison’.”