| Book Drive: October 3rd |
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HOLD A "PRE-DRIVE" AT YOUR SCHOOL, OFFICE, CHURCH, TEMPLE, NEIGHBORHOOD OR ELSEWHERE
 The Great American Book Drive is back! For the third year in a row, PBP is partnering with the City Mission Society of Boston and Better World Books to collect more books than Boston has ever seen in one place. Last year, we collected over 22,000 books in one day.
We are thrilled to add the NonProfit Center of Boston as partner this year. The NonProfit Center provides affordable office space to a variety of non-profit organizations. They have graciously offered us the use of their facilites in Boston's Leather District for the book drive.
We need your help! Hold your own drive. Chances are your co-workers, neighbors, family and friends have books collecting dust around their homes. Hold a drive at your school, church, office, neighborhood or anywhere else you hang out. Then bring the books to Boston (South Station area) on the day of the event.
Some of the books collected will be mailed to prisoners. Most will be sold by Better World Books to fund programs at PBP and the City Mission Society.
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| Shelving Needed |
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IF YOU KNOW OF ANYONE PARTING WITH HEAVY DUTY METAL OR WIRE SHELVING, LET US KNOW
We're in the process of re-organizing our book room and storage room and we are looking for heavy-duty shelving that can hold full boxes of books. Examples are shown below. If you know of a business or organization that is getting rid of anything like this please let us know.
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| Video: Books Behind Bars |
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EMERSON COLLEGE STUDENTS PRODUCE DOCUMENTARY ON THE PRISON BOOK PROGRAM
 Many thanks to Maria Brophy and Shannon Donahue of Emerson College. These two students spent many hours at PBP and in interviews with volunteers and ex-offenders. The result is this 10 minute video that explores PBP and its impact.
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| Celebrating 30 Years of Service |
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THANK YOU FRAN!
 On Saturday, June 6th, over 30 people gathered for a special packing session in honor of Fran Roznowski who is "retiring" after volunteering at PBP for over 30 years! Fran has seen PBP transform itself from a small program in the basement of the Red Book Store to one of the largest "books to prisoners" programs in the country. Among many other accomplishments, Fran has spearheaded our recent negotiations with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to allow us to send books to people in prisons across the Commonwealth.
We join countless PBP customers in thanking Fran for her commitment and dedication to people in prison!
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| Thank You Volunteers! |
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 MANY MANY THANKS TO OUR MAY VOLUNTEERS!
- Boston Cares
- Eastern Nazarene College
- Fidelity After Five
- Park Street Church, Boston
- Single Volunteers of Boston
- Squash Busters
- United Church of Christ, Walpole, MA
... and numerous dedicated individuals! |
| Prisoner Writing |
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| We recently asked prisoners to write essays explaining why books are so important to prisoners. We are pleased to bring you the latest in a series of these essays we will be publishing over the coming months.
Here's the essay we chose for June...
Why do we insist upon referring to our judicial system by the term "Department of Corrections?" especially when it is so obvious that our government believes not in concepts like corrections or rehabilitation. Nor should they with our current 85% recidivism rate. Perhaps we should change the name to Warehousing Project for Uneducated Delinquents. It would only be a more proper and fitting observation.
After six years in prison, the thing I am most convinced of is that our exploding prison population is a direct result of 3 things: 1) lack of proper education of the lower class. 2) The complete decimation of the family, community and social structures and 3) the ever-expanding gap between the upper and lower classes.
David Lee Way
Dekalb, MS |
