books through bars | Misled Youth

i signed up for this organization's email list, i think they do great work and just wanted to post this for anyone who wants to do some volunteer work. Maybe we could all do it together some time? Last year misled youth would help with food not bombs in the summer.

here is the email:

Greetings,

You're getting this message because you gave Books Through Bars your
name
and address at the NYC Anarchist Book Fair. Your email address is
being
put on the BTB announcement list (VERY low-traffic, don't worry), and I
also wanted to give you some more information about how BTB works. We
meet during the following times:

Mondays 7:30-9:30pm
Thursdays 7:30-9:30pm
Sundays 5-8pm

At these sessions, we read letters from prisoners all over the country
and
pack up books to be mailed to them. The location is the New York City
AIDS Housing Network (http://www.nycahn.org). NYCAHN is at 80-A Fourth
Ave (between Bergen and St. Marks Sts), Brooklyn. Take the
2/3/4/5/Q/B/D/M/N/R train to Pacific St or Atlantic Ave and walk a few
blocks south along Fourth Ave. We meet in the basement of NYCAHN, so
ring
our doorbell behind the metal gate covering the door (we have to keep
the
door locked during our sessions -- don't be discouraged!).

If you're interested in helping out BTB, you can come at any time
during
our packing hours, and you can commit to as much -- or as little --
fits
into your life (some volunteers come every session or every week, and
others come by every month or so). We also periodically have benefits
(author readings, movie nights, etc.), which is another way to get
involved with BTB (just flyering for these benefits is always helpful,
too!). You could also work on getting a community center or other NYC
venue to keep a book donation drop-box for
us.

Please write back if you have any questions. More information about
BTB,
including what types of books we're looking for, and the criminal
justice
system is at http://www.abcnorio.org/affiliated/btb.html. Hope to see
you
soon!

Melissa
BTB-NYC

Wed, 04/25/2007 - 1:09am

xcriteria

Posts: 92
Joined: 2006-12-04

...

cool... I could probably come Mondays.

I like the idea of this project... one question is, how can worthwhile book be delivered to inmates interested in them? For example, a lot of books on amazon.com can be aquired (including shipping) for less than $5, or books from local sources could easily be around $1, but how can we get them to people who read them? I guess the letters would give an indication. Anyway, I'd like to check this out.

Wed, 04/25/2007 - 1:55am

kid_prototype

Posts: 126
Joined: 2006-12-17

how it works

basically poeple donate books to btb, and the inmates write to them asking for specific books or genres. then you try to fill their request as best you can. a lot of times they don't have the exact thing, so you try the closest thing you can. Also a lot of prisons have regulations about content that you have to follow. then you write a nice little note to the inmate to go with the book. It's a good project, you can really reach an individual and brighten their day or even their whole week.