Want a Prison Book Program t-shirt?  How about a coffee mug?  We've made that and more available through our new online store.  Check it out at www.prisonbookprogram.org/store.
 
Please tell us what you think at info@prisonbookprogram.org

 

Your friends, relatives and co-workers have books they need to find a new home for.  Help them out and help PBP at the same time!  Hold a book drive and bring the books to the Nonprofit Center in Boston on October 3rd.  

 

We'll help you! We've put together a kit with all the info you need to run your own drive - flyers, email text, etc.  If you need a collection box, we can supply you with one of those too.  Go to www.prisonbookprogram.org/bookdrive for complete information. 

Thanks to the numerous people who voted for UFPC in the Partners in Preservation online initiative, UFPC will receive a grant that will allow them to improve the appearance of the bell tower and the public spaces around the presidential crypts.  Rev. Sheldon Bennett stopped by to personally thank us for our support and mentioned that votes from our supporters were significant in securing the grant.
 
If you've volunteered with us, you've likely gotten a tour of this historically unique building.  We're pretty sure that John Adams and John Quincy Adams would approve of what we're doing just a few feet from their final resting place.  In the words of John Adams, "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."
 
Thank you to UFPC for generously hosting the Prison Book Program for the last five years.  We look forward to seeing the improvements made possible by the grant.  

Resilience Multimedia, publisher of the widely praised book, "Think Outside the Cell: An Entrepreneur's Guide for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated," is sponsoring its second writing contest for people who are or were in prison, and their loved ones. The best submissions will be included in books in Resilience's "Think Outside the Cell Series," which is intended to help the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated tackle hard challenges and have successful lives.

 

Contestants may write personal stories about one or more of these topics:

I'm very excited that there are programs around which provide books of all genres for those of us who are in prison, including dictionaries.  Dictionaries are extremely important.  If you do not know the meaning of a word, you might miss the most important part of what you are reading. 

  

Reading is more than just a fundamental exercise; it's a way of life for those desiring more than just the bare minimum.  Having the ability to obtain books on a regular basis, with little or no investment is of the utmost importance to those of us who are incarcerated.  If we did not have books to turn to, then most of us would only have the option of getting into more trouble.  The same kinds of troubles that placed us here in the first place. 

 

Each day, I choose to get up and do something different with my life.  First I get up and thank The Almighty for the blessing of one more day to prove my worth to Him, and ask Him for the strength to get it right.  Then I read.  I read for no less than an hour.  I believe it takes at least that long for anything of substance to penetrate my well-worn brain cells.  Besides my devotion to The Almighty and my personal studies, I then plan my day ahead.  I make sure to notice that if I did something less than favorable in my studies (or otherwise) the day before, I always try to do that much more on this new day ahead of me. 

  

Besides my religious texts, I believe the book that has had the most impact on my life will have to be "As a Man Thinketh," by James Allen.  That book really gives me the motivation to not only dig deep inside of myself but also to trust in my choices, and to know that my choices and the believe in those choices could mean the difference in them coming to fruition or not. 

I hope that this short piece addressing why books play such an important role in my life will benefit someone, even if only in a small way. 

 

Rashid Sultan
Tucson, AZ

 

July Stats 
 

Prisoners served:
454

 

 Books sent:

908

 

Volunteer sessions:

111

 

 

Prisoners served:

3568

 

Books sent:

7136

 

Volunteer sessions:

1158

   

 

 

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