89 South Street (near South Station), Boston, MA

The Prison Book Program, along with the City Mission Society and Better World Books, will be hosting the 4th Annual Great American Book Drive. The books we collect that day will either be sent to prisoners or sold to support the programs of PBP and the City Mission Society. 

1) Donate: You can make a tax-deductible donation online in any amount with just a few clicks!  Just $4 lets us send books to one prisoner. 

2) Collect Books: PBP relies on book donations in order to have good-quality reading materials on our shelves to send to our prisoner patrons. This list will tell you the types of books we need most. Or, if you're really ambitious...

3) Organize a Book Drive: On November 6, 2010, PBP will be hosting our fourth annual Book Drive in Boston. Many individuals and organizations hold "pre-drives" at their workplace, church, or school and then deliver the donations to us on November 6th. Interested? We have a Book Drive Kit that can help you get started.

4) Volunteer: Do you like hanging out in bookstores and libraries?  Then you'll love being a "personal shopper" for the prisoners who write to us.  We're open every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 until 9:00 in our Quincy, MA office. We're also open one Saturday per month - see our website for specific dates and times.

5) Special Skills: In addition to picking and packing, we are always looking for volunteers to help with grant writing, public relations, Facebook/Newsletter writing, and outreach to bookstores and publishers. 

6) Buy a Souvenir: Through our partnership with Cafe Press, assorted PBP merchandise is available for sale online -- including t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and more!

7) Buy your books at Better World Books: Better World Books is a for-profit social enterprise that collects used books and sells them online to raise money for literacy initiatives worldwide -- including PBP! Headed back to school? Check them out for great deals on textbooks, too.

8) Spread the Word: Forward this newsletter to friends, colleagues, and relatives that have an interest in literacy, education, and prison issues. We are always trying to build up our mailing list and reach more people.

9) Connect: You can follow us on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook. Social media helps us spread the word to interested and like-minded folks!

10) Donate: Did we mention you can donate online?

Check out this mini-documentary about the Chicago Books to Women in Prison program.  It even features a former customer as a volunteer. 

Click here to view on YouTube. 

Being a gen-X'er, I rarely cracked a book. That doesn't mean I never read though. I was an internet info "junkie." I would come home from work and after eating. Go right to the computer. I don't know who was more jealous, my TV or my wife.

I had my favorite sites - Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia were my 3 most visited. I could learn about anything.

Then... I'm whooshed into the grinder of the "justice" system, innocent, yet convicted. I am the victim of an ID thief, a former employee, who even confessed and exonerated me. But the fact is, once you're in the system, they won't let go, no matter what.

This brings me to prison and books. The only source if information, fiction or non, is books. The only mental challenge is books. The only "escape" is books. Prison is a pit of pestilence and misery. Many people choose to embrace the culture, to become a tattooed hate machine. They settle in their anger because there are no books or they can't read.

As an experiment, one day I took a good book, The Alchemist, by Paulo Cohelio, and sat in the common area, among the gambling and drug deals, and started reading OUT-LOUD. After only a few minutes, I had an audience. I felt like a kindergarten teacher at story-time. But I kept reading, using all my skill at tone and inflection.

About a dozen gang members, drug addicts and even a C.O. was enthralled by the treat. So I read until we were all recalled, about half-way through the story. "Tomorrow?" I was asked. Of course I finished the story. I became legend.

So I would read other books, Harry Potter's and others. And believe you me, these grown men were like kids. You could see the joy of the book, the story, the escape. After a while I had other men help read the stories, and I think they must still read. Reading out loud to one-another.

To witness the effect a book, a story, a tale had on the men was uplifting, so what book wouldn't help?

Maybe, if we read to each other more often, we won't need so many prisons.

Thank you for the books.

Thank you for the information from the books.

And I'll thank you to re-think prisons in our culture. They are a cancer.

Prisoners served:

4914

Books sent:

9828

Volunteer sessions:

1659

   

 

 

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