MORGANTOWN – The Appalachian Prison Book Project will hold its third annual fundraiser/holiday-cheer event, Sponsor an Incarcerated Reader, this December.
The APBP – its offices are on the second floor of the Aull Center, next to the Morgantown Public Library – was founded in 2004 and has sent out more than 70,000 books to inmates about 200 participating federal, state and local facilities in West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee, said APBP digital communications coordinator Lydia Welker.
Sponsor an Incarcerated Reader, “is just a small part of that but it’s pretty exciting,” she said.
Each book sent to an inmate includes what they call a half-sheet that includes an explanation of the book. Book donors can write a message on the half-sheet.
But people who donate funds online don’t get to do that, Welker said. “So this is an opportunity to include a message of hope or cheer or holiday joy with every donation.”
Donations for this event will be accepted Dec. 3-7. Those messages will be printed out. And at the Dec. 14 wrapping party at First Presbyterian Church across the street, volunteers will hand write each message on a half-sheet on the donor’s behalf to include with the books they wrap up and send out.
Donations are $10 and their goal is to raise $2,500 for this event to send out 250 books, she said.
Inmates’ privacy is protected and donors don’t know who will receive a book they sponsor, she said, but they can attach their name to their message if they wish.
APBP gets about 200 book requests per week from inmates, Welker said. The inmate may specify a genre, an author, maybe even a title. “We have wall to wall shelves full of books that people have donated to us.” The volunteers – the staff is all volunteers – read the letters and try to find the best match and mail it.
For this holiday-cheer event, they will choose a random selection of recent letters and include the holiday wishes with them.
“People can get involved by donating to the fundraiser or coming to the wrapping party if they’re in Morgantown,” she said.
Inmates will often send APBP some comments on what receiving a book means to them. Here are a few recent comments from inmates in West Virginia facilities.
“I was rather unenergetic this afternoon. The preparations for my creative writing class were going well, but I needed a boost; your extraordinary gift of the book ‘The Writer’s Way’ by Sara Maitland arrived and my day is brighter, the class will be stronger, and your legacy of helpfulness endures.”
“Thank you so much for all you have done for me. Because of your book program sending me ‘Michie’s West Virginia Code Annotated,’ I was able to litigate an amended sentence order from life without parole to eligibility for parole after serving 15 years. In other words, you helped save my life.”
“I stayed up and read the book all night. I really did enjoy the book and I thank you again. I love reading. I have one more request, for a Scrabble dictionary that would stop a lot of fighting here, when they are playing the game.”
“As a inmate doing time I pass my time by reading because it keeps me out of trouble and it opens my mind to new things. When I get into a good book I am transported away from this place to the places in the books. I read about 2 to 3 books a week.”
For information about APBP and how to donate, go to https://appalachianprisonbookproject.org.
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