Volunteering

Today some friends and I decided to volunteer at the Prison Book Program in Quincy, MA. The program provides books to prisoners who write letters to the program requesting some titles that they might like, or genres that they enjoy. Many of the letters requested dictionaries, GED study books, yoga and meditation guides, classic fiction and books on law. The letters varied greatly. Some were wordy with lots of requests or describing the prison library (generally in a negative way), or the ones asking for legal texts went a little into detail about the poor representation they received and that they wanted to gain a better understanding of the legal system in which they are so intimately entangled. It was fun to fill the orders, but I felt really bad when I couldn't quite find what they were requesting. I did my best and I know that my few hours of volunteering touched quite a few people's lives.