Books to Prisoners

It's been awhile since I've posted, and I don't usually use this space in a bloggy way, but this topic seemed worthy of sharing. I volunteered last night with Books to Prisoners, and it was a great experience. The group meets several times a week in a garage whose walls are lined with shelves full of donated books. About 8 of us spent a couple hours reading letters from prisoners and putting together packages of books to send them. In some of the letters, the inmates' desire for books was leaping off the page. One man in a Florida jail asked for HVAC manuals and Shakespeare. Another inmate with immaculate handwriting and grammar greeted me as comrade. He was trying to stay strong with 22 months to go, and wanted books on history, the civil rights movement, and black liberation. Searching through the shelves to find books that will be perfect for the person at the other end of the letter was an amazingly humanizing experience.

The organization is short handed, under-funded, and low on many kinds of books. If you want to help with any of those things, check out the above link, or you can sign up on Hands On Portland. If you don't live in PDX, you can check this map for a program near you.