Prison Book Program

Do you like to read? Well if you do then this is a great volunteer opportunity for you. If you don’t like to read this is still a really cool opportunity for you. Don’t worry you don’t have to read the books. What you do at the Prison Book Program down in Quincy is you pick out books that prisoners request. The most reading you’ll be doing is reading various letters written by prisoners from around the country.
Now I know some of you might be thinking «so I’m playing librarian for prisoners» and that’s not quite the case. There’s various things you might be doing here from wrapping book packs to mail, choosing books or doing quality control to make sure that the request was properly fulfilled.
I’ve done this particular event with the volunteer organization, One Brick a couple of times. PBP also welcomes singles as well as groups. At some point during your time here one of the coordinators might take a group on a tour of the church and show you where John Quincy Adams was buried but, don’t quote me on which dead president’s tomb it is.
The most entertaining thing though are the prisoners letters. They do have some odd requests that you can’t help but smile at. The majority of the time you’ll get requests for a dictionary. Reading is essential to some of these guys rehabilitation. But you also get requests like handbooks on the Aryan Nation those are in really short supply so sometimes you just gotta give them a Mormon Bible. Though the coordinators are super friendly and always willing to answer any questions you might have. This is one of the cooler volunteer experiences I’ve had. And it encourages me to read myself.

Want to feel like you have a pen pal in Prison, but don’t want the commitment of actually writing back to them and the a potential ex-​con coming to meet you in person once they get released? Go volunteer at The Prison Book Program.
The Prison Book Program started in the back of a bookstore in Cambridge, MA when the owners saw a need not being met. Prisoners from all over the country write to The Prison Book Program and request reading materials that The Prison Book Program packs up and mails to them at their jail. The Prison Book Program is completely run by volunteers and all books and supplies are donated, as well as the space that the work is done in (thanks First Parish). It is impressive to see the vast hodpodge of books that the Program has to give out and it is surprising that the most frequently requested book is The Dictionary.
Volunteering is really fun. You pick a letter from a prisoner asking for books, you fill their book order (hmmm…he is asking for something to do with hunting, the outdoors, manly men, or film; let me give him this book on the Oscars, it’s the closest thing here) package up the books, address them, and imagine the smile that comes over the prisoner’s face (once they have stopped trying to make the tape and envelope into a shank) when they read the book.
It is humbling to read some of the letters from the prisoners. You can tell that some are extremely grateful, while others are annoyed that they did not get the specific book that they asked for the first time around (in a place that runs on donations, you can only imagine how hard it is to fill even the simplest request). Some letters are extremely eloquent, and others are hard to decipher. Either way, you do some work, read some titles of books you had forgotten you read (hey there, Their Eyes Were Watching God), meet some new people, and feel good when you leave.
Drop in to help out on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30pm until 9pm and once a month on Saturday (email to confirm the actual Saturday date).