A picture is worth a thousand words, especially for an incarcerated loved one. The mere smiles of their families and friends etched into a piece of paper can make such a difference in their wellbeing while doing their time. With Pelipost, the official Photos-to-Prison App®, it has become easier for families to send photos to their loved ones in any prison around the country. Founders Joseph Calderon, Becky Calderon, and Natalie Calderon drew inspiration from their personal experience of having a dear family member in prison. Having been in that boat themselves, they deeply feel the importance of keeping the prison family together. Pelipost has helped over 350,000 people stay connected with their incarcerated loved ones, and has shipped over 10 MILLION photos across the country. Learn more about their story and the inspiring work the Calderon family are doing in the world as they join Julia Lazareck in this episode.
Learn more about what to do when a loved one is incarcerated in Prison: The Hidden Sentence book. You can get your copy on Amazon.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Pelipost: Pictures For Loved Ones In Prison
Julia, thanks for having us. To jump right into it, it was definitely a life-changing experience having her incarcerated. I feel like the moment when I found out she was incarcerated, it’s almost like my whole world stopped. I had to take a step back and it’s hard to go back to that moment.
I was a full-time student at school. I remember the moment when I got the call that she was incarcerated, that she went in. I was between classes. I was with my roommate when I got the call and it was from my mom’s phone, but it wasn’t my mom on the other side. It was one of my mom’s friends. She had told me that they had taken her into custody. At that point, I was almost like, “What does that even mean? When will I get to speak to my mom?” A lot of things start going through my head like, “When can I see her? I need to talk to her,” and not knowing the helplessness of not being able to talk to her because we would talk almost on a daily basis. My mom and I have a very close communication, and not having that communication and automatically it was taken away from us, that was probably the biggest impact that I felt immediately. Also, being lost, not knowing where to go, what to do, who do I call. What’s next? Is my mom getting what she needs? All of those things are running through my head all at once.
I was twenty years old.
He was my roommate. His name is Vi and he was very close to me. I confided in him as a bigger brother. I’m an only child. Having him there, which is confiding in him, telling him what was going on was important to me. It was having that support there for me. I told him and that was pretty much it for the immediate timeframe there.
I only went to court once. It was during the preliminary hearing.
Having a loved one in prison is an emotional roller coaster ride. Share on XThank you. He was in college and I played the role of protecting my son as much as possible from everything that I was going through. The least I could communicate with him so that it wouldn’t impact him is the approach that I took. During the whole 2 or 3 years of trial this, trial that, it was always the belief that I would get house arrest, even that morning, or else I would have prepared him for what could have been. I left that morning without 1 centimeter of clue that I was going to be taken in. Let alone that minute, that day. That’s why the shock was beyond belief for him.
That’s why having a book like yours at the time, some type of resource to be like, “This is what to expect. This is how to go about, this is a new way of life at that point.” My mom went into the system and those that are closest to her go into the system with her. That’s where it’s like, “How are we going to get through this together?”
Take care of all the personal affairs because it was all of a sudden.
There are personal affairs. My mother was close with my grandparents. She’s taking care of them. They were elderly, her parents, my grandparents. Now that responsibility started shifting over to me because I was the next one closest to them. These things are going through your head. How do you prepare them and explain to them what’s going on and all of that?
He had to step up.
I was shocked because we’ve known each other for most of our lives. I knew her in a different light and I had no idea that she was even going through this because I was now living across the country. When he did tell me, I don’t remember specifically when it was, but I know we were in contact. I know he did confide with me and so we did talk about it. I remember him telling me about when he did go to visit her and how long of a drive it was and what happened. I remember the shock, but I didn’t feel any judgment. I was more concerned about him, how he was dealing with it, and their whole family, how they were doing. I was there to listen if he needed someone to talk to.
I was in Southern California. I was in Orange County in college. My mom ended up being in prison about eight hours away from us, from me. I had to wake up early to drive. I left maybe at midnight to get there by 8:00 AM for visitation. My roommate Vi in college would go with me so I wouldn’t have to drive by myself. He didn’t even get to go in. He would just go for the drive because he wasn’t approved for visitation, only I was. I’m forever grateful for him to be there with me during that journey. Getting into the prison, I remember going in, waiting outside the prison in line for the offices to open up. Everyone was there for visitation and then you’re waiting in the waiting room.
I remember you’re sitting there and you’re waiting for the correctional officers to call you up. It was a little intimidating at first because you don’t know what’s going on. You’re like, “What’s it going to be like?” I remember going through the metal detectors and then checking you for contraband. I distinctly remember when you go through that door and you’re in that sally port where you can go in through one gate, they shut it behind you, and then they open the next gate. I can vividly remember that gate opening. My heart is pounding like, “What am I going to experience when I walk through that gate and through that visitation room?” I walked in and it was almost like a big auditorium. There are individual tables there and people are sitting there. They’re waiting for their incarcerated loved one to come out.
I remember waiting there and I’m waiting for my mom to come through that door. When that door opened and I saw her come out, I immediately started crying. Seeing her and knowing that she was okay and all of that in a negative situation, that’s the positive aspect that you can grasp onto. It’s being able to briefly embrace her. You can’t do extended hugs or anything because it’s against the prison regulations and all of that. Being able to talk to her and know what her life behind bars is like and everything, that sense of communication is crucial to know those things.
Up to then, it’s those quick phone calls, squeezing whatever you can in and you need more than that.
It’s a fifteen-minute phone call.
You feel empty. To add on the visiting, I tried so hard to stop him from visiting because I didn’t want to put him through the drive. I did not want to be a burden. As a mother trying to protect him from the burden of driving eight hours and then to convince me because I’m locked up. It’s like the whole thing. You’re wrestling with knowing that it’s the thing you need more in your life. As a mom, I was trying to act strong for him. Finally he said, “I’m coming no matter what, mom. You’re not going to stop me. You’re not going to talk me out of it. I’m coming.” That’s why I was like, “Okay,” but the ups and downs in the mental, trying to deal with protecting yourself, trying to deal with protecting him and coping with everything was hard. When I saw him there, I felt like I can take on the world. I said, “I’ve got this, son. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want you to worry because I’m okay. As long as you’re okay, we’re going to do this together.” It’s very important.
Going back to that point, I can tell my mom didn’t want me to go through having to drive eight hours and all that. In my mind, I thought to myself, “If this was reversed and I was inside, she would have done the same for me.” It wasn’t even a question in my mind. I would have driven ten hours. I would have driven as far as I needed to just to see my mom and feel my mom. I would have gone as far as I needed to go for that. The hardest part for visitation was having to say goodbye when that visitation was winding down. You could see the clock and the clock is winding down and you’re having to say goodbye. “Mom, let me know if you need anything,” and her telling me not to worry, but naturally I’m going to worry. It’s my mother and she’s in prison. It’s a lot of emotions that you go through, ups and downs and all of that. It’s an emotional roller coaster ride for sure.
It was letters. As we mentioned, it was the brief phone calls but you can only squeeze in so much during that time. It was mostly letters and then sending photos as much as I could. With letters, there was always the delay of getting letters. I would be writing about something that happened this day and then she gets it maybe two weeks later. In those two weeks, many things have already happened. There was definitely a delay in that, but it was mostly letters that we stayed connected. I remember my mom would send me letters and artwork that her cellmates would draw. She would send it to me and I’d be like, “This is cool. Beautiful artwork.” It was a lot of letters and photos there.
That’s when I started to believe in the importance of pictures, believe it or not. During this time, while I was incarcerated, Joseph had graduated college and I had missed his college graduation. The communication with his dad has always been wonderful. He’s like, “I’m going to go ahead and have a party.” The night of his party, my best friend was there and she would write me every single day. She would write me and she would copy the Facebook posts or Myspace or whatever it was back then. She would copy everything and send them to me. It helped compensate for when I wasn’t hearing from him as much because he was having finals. This is a senior year in college. I told everyone. I told my mom, I told my dad, I told my best friend, “When you go out to his college graduation, you celebrate him. You do not worry that I’m not there. I’m celebrating him.”
It was important to try and maintain his life. I didn’t want him to not have that party or not have that joy. He graduated. When I saw pictures of his colors and all that stuff, you don’t care. That’s kept me going. He goes on and he gets a job. “Mom, I got myself a brand-new car.” Now he’s in the working world and he’s doing all this and, “I’m rewarding my college graduation and I’ve got this car.” He starts getting busier with work and life. I’m like, “Send me a picture of your car.” This is the story of what happened why Pelipost became. I wanted to brag to my cellies, the people in my cell. All they heard come out of my mouth was, “My son.” That’s how it is. You’re living with six people and you share, you find the joy somehow to share, to keep each other going. One of them became a grandma. One had a girl that made the cheerleading team and you feed off each other. I would brag so much and I wanted to brag and show off that my son got himself up 300 Chrysler. Every time I would call, I say, “Did you send me the pictures?”
“Mom, I’ll get them in the mail. I’ll get them in there.” I had to go to Walgreens. I had to go to Walmart and I’m busy. Getting to drop the photos in the mail was a challenge.
There is joy and redemption after prison. Share on XFinally, one time when I called him, I said, “Did you send the pictures?” He said, “Mom.” I said, “Joseph, I’m not going to talk to you until I ask you, ‘Did you send the pictures, and you say yes.'” I gave him the mom ultimatum. That’s when he decided.
“I better send some photos.” I sent the photos and she got the photo of me and my new car.
He decided there was a better way.
I was like, “I have all these photos on my phone. I wish I could tap them and get them sent straight from my phone.” That’s where the idea of Pelipost was born.
It was after she got out.
It was the happiest day of my life because I got to be there when my son got married, and of course, he married Natalie, who I held when she was born. Her mother and I were best friends and we never expected them. This is like a dream come true for us. It was the happiest day of my life. It was never planned. They found each other after years and here they are. It was true joy. To be there, I remember waking up and getting ready and say, “It feels great to know this is going to be the happiest day of my life.” It was wonderful to be there.
It’s joy and redemption. That’s what I try and share with people when they communicate to me. That’s why I like sharing my story. I’m not proud of all this stuff but I love sharing my story because life goes on. You make this such a positive story after suffering the pain, and all this and that. If it can get someone through difficult times, it’s worth it.
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One thing that happens when you are incarcerated or what happened with me is most of the time, you mentally separate from home as part of a way to function. During mail call and when pictures arrive, it’s a way of adding fuel to your tank to remind you, “I have a family. I have a purpose. I have a life. I have people that matter to me.” The role that the pictures played to me was to remind me that life is going on outside. I’m in here right now but hopefully, there will be a time for most of us. We’re able to rejoin if not, we’re able to at least take part. The feelings are still there. The joy that the pictures bring is like you could see a picture of a party. I can imagine being at that party and seeing the people in the pictures and saying, “I bet you, they were doing this at the time. I bet you, this is right after they had a beer or a toast or look how crazy they are on the dance floor.”
All of a sudden, you’re there in the picture and feeling that joy. That’s personal, but then what you’re able to do and share with your cellies or people, you want them to know that you have or had a life. You want them to know, “This is my son. This is my best friend. This is when I went here.” It not only takes you out of that immediate cell, but you’re able to share it with others. It’s important because it’s truly the only physical link to being outside. I never realized that until when I wanted a picture so bad or when my son graduated from college. I had heard about the party and I couldn’t wait to be a part of that party.
The only way of being part of that party for me was the pictures. Without the pictures, you don’t share it. You’re not connected. You don’t embrace. You don’t have those feelings. There are a couple of stories that would happen while I was in there with my immediate friend cellies. One of them became a grandma. I remember her waiting to receive her daughter’s first baby. This is when she became a grandma for the first time, waiting for the pictures of the baby to come in. It was huge. It’s bigger than what a lot of people understand or understood. That’s what made me passionate because it is the connection of the mind to get you to the location of being outside again.
It feeds you like I remember this feeling I had and the joy. I remember laughing with my friends. I remember things like that and I cannot stress it enough. That’s why I believe in this so much. It’s because of the feeling that it brought me. It kept me going. It truly did. When you could feel the envelope, it’s fat and you know there are pictures in it. That feeling of you can’t open the envelope fast enough so that you can pull them out and, “Look at my crazy ex-roommate. Look at the pictures of my dad. They were older. Look, they went here.” At times people think, “What pictures should we send? I don’t want to send pictures of us having too much fun.” On the contrary, it’s important because it brings joy. You could feel the joy. Sometimes it’s not joyful. Sometimes there are other incidents that happened that are sad. Somebody is sick, but at least you are able to take part in it. Whatever is happening on the outside world, you want to be able to take part in it and that’s what pictures do.
It all started when my mom wanted that picture of me and my brand-new car. It was so challenging to get to the store when life gets in the way. When you have all these photos on your phone, I was like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could send these photos directly from my phone?” I remember when my mom got out and I told her. I was like, “Mom, there has to be other people that are struggling with this. Let’s put up a website and see if people will send photos this way.” I put up this website and we got our first order. Someone had gone onto our website and uploaded photos. At that point, we were like, “Now what? How do we print photos? What are we doing here?” Another order would come in. We printed them off of our HP printer at home. We put them in an envelope. We had to handwrite the address and we sent it. We then got ten orders. We’re like, “Mom, people need this service.” We reached out to our 50 customers and we asked them, “What do you want? What would make this service beneficial?” Almost all of them responded, “I want this on a mobile app.”
We got to work and built the Pelipost app. From there, it started spreading. People love the service that we provide, the photo quality that we provided. We were getting so much feedback on that. We kept growing it from there and improving it, and making it better, getting people’s photos there quickly as fast as possible. When you send photos inside, you still have to have them inspected by the correctional officers in the mailroom. It was important for us to be able to send those photos. Once they’re in, we get them out the next day. That’s important to us because we want to minimize that delay to get them to the prison as fast as possible.
One thing also to speak to, being on the outside, there are other companies out there that offer various services and things like that. Being a user of those services, sending money and all of those, one thing that I noticed that was lacking was the customer service aspect of it. That’s something that we want to change. We know our customers are going through the difficult time of having someone incarcerated. We do not want to add to that by having a negative customer experience or a negative interaction with Pelipost. That’s what sets us apart is we know what you’re going through firsthand. We’re not here to add to that. We’re here to make it as positive as possible. That’s important to us.
Ultimately, Pelipost is a business. But more importantly, it is a community of mutual support. Share on XWe have various programs that we’ve started throughout this journey with Pelipost. One of the first ones that we decided to do was Love Your Inmate Day. We wanted to create a safe environment for everyone to share their love.
It’s annually on August 8th. We’ve been doing it for a few years now. We have many things we do around that time where we have everyone share if they have photos with their loved one or share dedications. We have giveaways. We wanted it to be a safe place for everyone to share their love for their incarcerated loved one. They want to share their experience and things like that. That’s one thing that we do annually. Every year, we try to make it bigger and better. In 2020, it was a little difficult. We wanted to make it better but with the pandemic, we weren’t able to. It was still virtual but eventually, we do want to make more of a meetup where people can come together. Another thing we do for the children with an incarcerated parent, we have student of the month. Every month we highlight a student or any child and we send them a $25 gift card for their academic excellence. We award them 500 Peli points because we have a point system at Pelipost. It equals up to a free order. They can send pictures on us.
Everyone who sends us a photo or enters has the eligibility to win basically. We like to do that. For two years in a row, we’ve teamed up with XO Factor who’s local here in Tampa. We were their title sponsor to help children with incarcerated parents to receive gifts this holiday season from their incarcerated loved one. We sponsored that and that brings us so much joy. We had an event where we wrapped all the gifts, we went live on Facebook and it was nice. We can’t wait for them to get those gifts. In every year, we’d like to add more and more things that we can do and give back to our community.
I was going to add that too. When we have meetings from the first year, it has always been that yes, it’s a business but we want to build a community of trying to help, trying to make this process easier. Not knowing a lot of stuff, we didn’t have the experience. We go in, we look for sides and we look for different areas where we can stick our nose in to become part of it and learn. Now, we have this old way of communication with many incarcerated people that they write to us, “Thank you so much.” When it was Love Your Inmate Day, we made flyers and we put a flyer into every order telling the inmate, “We’re here for you, guys. We understand you.” We put our story in the back so they understood, “Joe created this because his mama was incarcerated. We get it. We want you to receive your photos. We want your pictures there to bring joy.”
I felt that joy and you can’t erase that. When we get together and our plan is to continue to build our company. Ultimately, it is a company but the joy that it brings by us being involved is satisfying. It’s bringing us joy. That’s the bottom line. It’s to be able to turn my story into such a positive way of being able to turn it around, have my son create this, have his wife be such a wonderful part of it. I know I can sound like a commercial, but it is real what our feelings are of what we are here to do. We want to help during the process of this time of having someone incarcerated and we hear it all the time, “Thank you. We appreciate you. God bless you.” That’s what we’re here for.
Just to show, we have over 350,000 customers across the United States and we’ve sent over ten million photos from Pelipost. To give some clarity or some background, Becky was inside, she came out and now she is our Chief Operating Officer. She oversees all of the printing, fulfillment, and all of our staff to make sure that your photos get sent out and are received at the prisons and at the jails as well.
We are constantly keeping up with new rules and they’re constantly changing. We do our best to keep track of that. We have someone who calls the facilities and tries to work with them directly to make sure that they know who we are and that we do our best to follow, and let our customers know how to follow those rules so that they let the pictures through.
It does vary by facility. I know you can speak to it more, mom.
We deal with thousands of facilities throughout the US. Each one will have their different guidelines. What we do is we have built a database. My son has built a database. We go in and we type in the name of the facility and typing in as many rules as we are made aware of. That prevents the orders from being rejected. When a person comes in and says, “I’m sending to Cook County in Chicago,” they type that in, their rules pop up. Hopefully, that guides to that. These rules are constantly changing. 2020 was an extremely difficult year because there was a movement of something where people began to use printer ink to smuggle drugs in. Facilities throughout the US said, “No more pictures because we cannot guarantee the safety,” and this and that.
We had to launch a program to get into communication and say, “We guarantee there are no drugs in our pictures. Please don’t stop our pictures,” and we have to show them the importance. We had to educate them, “This is how we print it. There is no public interaction.” Now we’ve got facilities saying, “We accept them only from big companies or third parties.” It is not easy. It is not saying, “Send pictures.” It is a thing where we do our research and we work hard to try and stay on top of changes, rules, guidelines, everything. In our database, put in the facility that you’re sending to, it will tell you how many pictures they accept, what type of pictures they won’t accept and we do our best to do that.
We encourage our customers to make us aware of any new changes to become aware of. In 2020, it was a big part of us trying to get to our customers and be like, “If you are aware of any rules, please reach out to us so that we know as well. You can help us help others make sure that pictures get there.”
The big part of getting the word out was social media. There are many programs or groups on social media that they create a community. A big reason why we got a little traction at the beginning was on Instagram and Facebook.
One thing to add too is one of the programs that we have at Pelipost is we are very unique in the sense that we allow inmates to prepay and create their own Pelipost accounts. They are able to prepay their account, create an account, and then they can give what’s called their Pelipal’s ID number to someone on the outside. That someone on the outside will be able to send photos and it will deduct off of that inmate’s prepaid account. That’s a unique feature or program that we have at Pelipost.
To give the incarcerated loved ones the ability to pay for their loved one’s photos because they want more of them, but some people don’t have the means to do that on the outside with everything going on.
One thing about how that worked is I remembered that when I was incarcerated, people had trust accounts. I knew that they were able to own their own account financially. What they do is they have a lot of pen pals and family members, and the family members may not be able to afford sending the pictures. They have to pay the rent. They have to pay the bills. They have to pay the outside world here. I mentioned to my son, “It would be great if they can own their own account.” We started the trial period for it and they love it. It gives them a sense of they’re their account owners. They give their own ID to their friends and family, “Send me some pictures. I’ll pay for it.” They love it. I don’t know how to describe the word, but they’re able to stand and be able to provide something. It’s a program that is growing so much within the system. It’s those little things that we search for.
We got a lot of requests for copies of pictures. They wanted copies of the pictures that they received. They wanted more of them. We gave them that option that we would provide that service also to them.
That’s what makes us very different too because after being in there, I know the importance of the voice of the incarcerated person. We try and listen to them. We open every single letter they write to us. I try and read every single letter. If they’re saying, “I’ve got a blurry picture here,” I will reprint it and I will resend it. If they have a question, I will answer and I will resend it. They love that. We get calls from the mailroom sergeants, “Tell us about your program.” We say, “How did you hear about us?” “The inmates. Everyone is telling us about Pelipost,” because they are treated like they’re supposed to be treated with respect. We listen and they love that. They appreciate that. It snowballs into a successful overall business, not just in the company, but in everything.
Our mascot, our logo is a pelican. The logo is a pelican holding the photo in its beak. There are a lot of pelicans here in Florida.
Treat everyone with respect. Listening to what people have to say will help you snowball into a successful business. Share on XThey can download the app from the Google Store or Apple App Store. For more information, they can visit our website at Pelipost.com. We also have a blog as well. If they have any questions or need any resources on how to do things, what photos to send, there’s more information there and more on Becky and Joe’s story. That’s at Blog.Pelipost.com. If they ever have any questions and want to contact our customer service, they can email us at Support@Pelipost.com.
You don’t have to be a customer. Anyone can email us at any time. If you have questions about a particular facility, if you want to use our service, feel free to. If you have questions about a particular one, you can email us anytime. We’re here to respond to all of your inquiries. We encourage it from everyone in the community.
Thank you for having us.
Important Links:
- Pelipost
- Prison: The Hidden Sentence
- Love Your Inmate Day
- Instagram – Pelipost
- Facebook – Pelipost
- Blog.Pelipost.com
- Support@Pelipost.com
About Joseph Calderon
I am an entrepreneur to the core. My first “venture” was a motor scooter parts catalog that I printed on my Sony Vaio desktop when I was ten years old. We grossed a whopping $27 in sales.
Fast forward to today and I am the founder of Pelipost, a mobile app that lets users send photos to their incarcerated loved ones. From idea to website to mobile app, I’ve learned so much in such a short period of time.
I truly enjoy the strategic planning for entrepreneurs with regards to user acquisition, app/web development, UI/UX design, and outsourcing management.
I welcome anyone to connect with me, within any industry, student or professional, regardless of title, because I believe everyone has their own unique skills, experiences, and outlooks, which can provide mutually beneficial growth personally and professionally.
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