Dignity and Power Now, a group of local artists and families of loved ones incarcerated in Los Angeles County jails, will present its “Freedom Harvest” summer pop-up arts and wellness event at Pitchess Detention Center on Saturday, July 1, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Free massages, bodywork, yoga sessions, herbal tea making, flower and herb bundle making, crafts, listening stations and performance and movement art will be available outside of the jails for families and friends visiting those incarcerated at the Pitchess Detention Center.

The event is free to the public.

“Freedom Harvest” events are also slated for the Twin Towers Correctional Facility on July 15 and August 19, and July 29 at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood. Those are also free to the public and take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“Freedom Harvest is the culmination of a multifaceted, trauma informed, healing, motivated movement to end state violence and mass incarceration,” said Dignity and Power Now’s Director of Programs Guadalupe Rocio Chavez.

“Black, brown and poor communities need a Los Angeles that will fight for our health and well-being instead of our incarceration,” Chavez said.

In its fourth year, Freedom Harvest is facilitated by Dignity and Power Now’s Building Resilience project and will feature collective of artist and healer volunteers who will engage the community on issues of incarceration, trauma and collective strength.

“This is a response to the lack services for the families and loved one on the inside,” Chavez said. “What we’re offering is a response to the violence and violent culture that is L.A. County jails. Our intention with the Freedom Harvest is to disrupt the oppressive and shaming environment created by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and to provide a space for families with incarcerated loved ones to heal, create and organize.”

The Pitchess Detention Center is located at 29320 The Old Road, Castaic 91384.

About Dignity and Power Now
Dignity and Power Now is a grassroots organization based in Los Angeles that fights for the dignity and power of incarcerated people, their families and communities. In doing so, DPN wages a fight for everyone because the prison industrial complex forms an imaginative limit on everyone’s capacity to envision freedom and liberation. Find out more at www.dignityandpowernow.org.