WE'LL TRADE YOU!
Heal the Ocean Swaps Balloons for Airplane Sky Writing in
Support for Lompoc Federal Correctional Inmates
Photo courtesy of KEYT/3 News
On Saturday, March 20, 2021, a large banner flew over Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex Saturday morning as a show of support for inmates who have had to endure the COVID-19 pandemic behind bars.
The long banner read "FCC Prisoners You Are Not Forgotten."
Heal the Ocean provided the airplane. Originally, organizers planned to release balloons designed to fly in the sky over the prison in a show of support for inmates who have suffered multiple COVID-19 outbreaks at the prison since March 2020. During those outbreaks, more than 1,000 inmates and staff members at the prison were infected. Four inmates have passed away.
However, when Heal the Ocean was told the demonstration involved the release of a gazillion helium-filled balloons, we stepped in and offered to pay for a plane flyover in order to prevent pollution caused by the release of balloons. Even though we were told the balloons were biodegradable, they don’t biodegrade unless in high heat, in the interim, they float over the landscape, with strings attached, and pose threat to birds and other animals – and if they reach the ocean, the sea animals.
“Heal the Ocean doesn’t like to say, ‘NO, don’t do this!’ rather than present an alternative,” HTO Executive Director Hillary Hauser said. “Especially since this is a Social Justice issue.”
The Love Your Inmate group, organized by Chrissie Rogers, had been working with family members of inmates at Lompoc FCC to host the event for the more than 1,000 inmates and staff members at the prison who have been infected since the pandemic began. The Lompoc Prison has been one of the worst Bureau of Prison outbreaks and has prompted a federal class-action lawsuit filed May 16, 2020, by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five inmates, who are seeking alternative confinement due to the prison's response to the virus.
The Love Your Inmate group had planned to release balloons from nearby Ryon Memorial Park in Lompoc on February 21, 2021. When Heal the Ocean heard about it, we immediately got on the phone and found The Skywriters, LLC, which flies messages all over California, and within a couple of hours, a contract was signed. We would replace the balloons with a Skywriter.
On February 21, everyone gathered at the nearby park to participate in the ceremony and the flyover. So did we. The ceremony went ahead, but the flight was canceled. The weather blew us out.
But over this past weekend, on Saturday, March 20, 2021, the weather cooperated, and the flight took place.