I had a really great volunteer experience today. One Brick Philly had an opportunity with Books Through Bars. Books Through Bars is an organization that provides books to prisoners. Apparently, a lot of prisons don't have libraries, and prisons that do have libraries have small collections. Books Through Bars doesn't just send prisons books, but gets letters from prisoners requesting by title, author or subject (they prefer subject, because all of their books are donated, so they're not guaranteed to have any one book in inventory).
They started us out wrapping books that had already been selected. We reread the letters and checked to see if the books were appropriate based on what they asked for and what the prison allowed. Then we wrapped the books in brown paper and way too much tape (per their request, not because that's how I wrap packages).
That's me in the front, doing something with the package I just wrapped up.
After about an hour and a half of wrapping packages, I found myself, surprisingly, ready to get away and make my own packages. When I make kid packs at Cradles to Crayons, I generally find it really stressful, because all you know about the kid is gender, age, size, and reading level. From that, you're supposed to pick out clothes, toys and books. Way too much pressure for me, since I know nothing about the kids. But, since the prisoners write their own letters, it was fun, rather than stressful, to try to find books that match their requests. And their requests were so varied. Some wanted fiction to read. Others wanted to learn a trade or improve skills. Books to prepare for GED were popular and still others wanted advanced math and physics text books. It was interesting to see what people wanted and now I know what to do with all of my husband's old text books. There's a prisoner somewhere who wants to read about foreign policy.
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