Prisoners Literature Project

Announcements

Fall 23/Winter 24 Thank you letters

We are happy to share the following letters that we received during the holidays from book recipients.


See some favorite wishlist donations in 2023

We have wishlists at many of our bookstore partners!


Prisoners Literature Project – how you helped us deliver in 2023!

Welcome to our last update of 2023. As the New Year approaches, we want to thank all of our co-ordinators, volunteers, bookstore partners, and donors for making it another very successful year sending free books to incarcerated folks in 49 U.S. states.

We recommend following our Instagram feed to keep up on the PLP. But here’s some highlights for the year:

– We sent out over 10,000 packages of new & used books into U.S. prisons, and truly matched books to the requests of so many – who would have otherwise gone without.
– We bolstered the books in our dedicated library space by getting donations from publishers like Tor & local bookstore partners (and even from Palm Springs!)
– We participated in local book fairs to spread the word and re-sell books we can’t otherwise send out!
– We hosted students from the social justice program at Berkeley High School, and will do more student sessions in 2024.
– We got some wonderful thank-you letters from incarcerated folks who are able to be inspired, learn new skills, or transport their minds with our books.

With thousands of hours of volunteering from those who help us pick and pack books yearly – not to mention the many generous donations you give – PLP’s outreach wouldn’t have been possible in 2023. So thank you!

Final reminder: tax-deductible donations welcome before end of year!

Since we only have a few days left until the end of 2023, we wanted to remind everyone preparing your annual donations to non-profits:

– We greatly appreciate your money donations via credit card or PayPal. 
– We’re a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit, so those donations are tax-deductible!
– If you want to donate via check, feel free to send it via the Bound Together Books address in San Francisco (our book store partner!)

Finally, if you have a specific directed donation in mind, or some other way to help the cause, please email us direct and we can discuss it.

The vast majority of your donations go towards a) the $60,000+ U.S. Postal Service bill we get every year b) buying select ‘remaindered’ books that we can’t get donated c) rent on our dedicated library space. (All vital to our continued work!)

Thanks once again for your support, and happy holidays,
– PLP co-ordinators and friends.

PLP Giving Tuesday update – matching funds now $5,500!

Thanks to a kind donor, the matching for Prisoners Literature Project’s Giving Tuesday campaign has been upped to $5,500. So every dollar you give, up to $5.5k has its impact doubled, until Friday, Dec. 1st.

Reminder of our goal: to continue sending out  >1,000 free book packages every month to incarcerated folks in 49 U.S. states. But we’re running at a money deficit in 2023, for two reasons:

– Increased cost of postage: Postage for a 3 lb book package will increase over 16% in January 2024 from late January 2021.
– increased cost for books: Each year more institutions accept only new books, and more people inside are requesting specific new books to help them develop skills for employment when they are released.

So we’re asking:

Donate before Friday to double your impact!
(Donations are tax-deductible. Debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal accepted – please contact us if you want to donate a different way.)

PS – here’s an excerpt from the thank-you letter shown above: “I am grateful and appreciative of the work you do. I am … serving a lengthy sentence, and honestly reading a good book, or any for that matter, has been my daily escape. I wasn’t much of a reader before, but three years into my incarceration and I’ve turned into a bibliophile. I found out about your organization through a book titled ‘The Sentences That Create Us.’ It was given to me by my cellmate as a parting gift when he was transferred to a different prison…. I wish I would have known about you sooner.”


PLP needs your help with our deficit – get your donation $ doubled!

For our annual #GivingTuesday campaign, and Prisoners Literature Project has a special ask. To help us, we’ve put together $5,500 in matching funds, so the dollars you donate can be doubled from now until the end of November.

We’ve been sending out >1,000 free book packages every month to incarcerated folks in 49 U.S. states. But we’re running at a money deficit in 2023, for two reasons:

– Increased cost of postage: the USPS has been raising prices twice a year, due to inflation. A 3 lb book package will cost us $5.32 to send in January 2024, up from $4.45 in late 2021. (That’s a lot!)
– High-quality books can be expensive to buy: we’re trying our best to fulfil requests that we can’t get donated in bulk, from practical ‘profession to pursue when I get out’ books – see the below thank-you letter – to dictionaries. (Also: many prisons only allow new books in!) These books can cost us $2-$12 each.

We have money in the bank, but we’re looking to make up our $20,000+ funding deficit in the remainder of 2023. If we can’t, we’ll have to cut back on those high-quality book purchases in 2024.

So if you can help us out, please:

Donate to PLP now!
(Debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal accepted – please contact us if you want to donate a different way!)

All of your donations are tax-deductible, too. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back next week for a final reminder ahead of #GivingTuesday.


Halloween Horror Book Showcase

Watch our new Halloween video! Horror books are in high demand by incarcerated readers.  Help us “flesh out” our horror section by purchasing a scary book. Details including a range of titles on our donate page.


Summer 2023 Thank You Letters

We’re pleased to share some letters that we’ve received over this past summer from book recipients. As noted, in the letter, word gets around about our program and the flow of letters to PLP is non-stop. The fact that readers take the time to share their appreciation for our efforts (using an often precious stamp) is powerful and keeps us intent on our mission to share the joys of books and reading.


PLP hosts session for Berkeley High Students

PLP was contacted by a local group “The Ahimsa Collective” asking if we would host a session as part of the 6 day intensive internship between The Ahimsa Collective and Berkeley High School rising and graduating seniors in the law and social justice two year elective. We were pleased to be able to welcome eleven teens into our library to learn about what we do. They read letters, selected books to meet the request and wrote address labels, invoices and notes for the recipient. At the end of the 3-hour session we had 6 tubs of packages to ship out!

Please check out the work that the Ahimsa Collective is doing around Restorative Justice in the Community, Rentry Housing and Support, Victim Offender Dialogues and other meaningful efforts: https://www.ahimsacollective.net/

We hear that the PLP session was a highlight for the teens and we hope to host additional sessions during the school year. They are considering do a book drive for our efforts as well. It’s great to connect with other local programs that are working on social justice efforts.

We started off with some history of our organization, what we do and some of the challenges we face
Our sessions are usually smaller than this but the group managed the space quite well
Searching for books appropriate to the request
Carefully printing the address label
Writing a note for the book requestor on the back of the invoice!
Book weights are checked on the scales (far left) as we try to keep it to 3lbs. Postage is expensive!
Books ready to be put into envelopes, taped up and stamped!

Donate your stuff to support PLP!

Last call for spring cleaning… If you live in San Francisco or are willing to travel there, you can donate any kind of good quality unwanted stuff to the Community Thrift Store in person, saying they are for the benefit of Prisoners Literature Project. We’ll get the proceeds after they are sold! This has been a great source for postage money for PLP over the years. Reuse, reduce, recycle!


Tor donates hundreds of genre fiction titles to PLP

Many, many thanks to Tor Books for donating hundreds of titles to us! (They’ll get sent out – for free – to incarcerated folks across the U.S. who requested these genres.)

Some of the prisoners we send in to demand new or ‘new-like’ books, so it’s particularly helpful to have publishers send us their ‘advanced reader copies’ or remainders. If you can also help with this, please contact us!



About the Prisoners Literature Project

The Prisoners Literature Project is an inclusive, all-volunteer, grassroots nonprofit whose purpose is to encourage reading, the pursuit of knowledge, and self-determination among incarcerated people. By sending free reading materials to those behind bars, PLP aims to foster learning and critical thinking and help people prepare to lead successful lives after incarceration. We believe that all people have a right to read.

Please consider donating to the PLP or volunteering your time (if you live in the Bay Area, CA!) to help us answer letters from prisoners who write us from all over the United States.

Prisoners – want books?

Mailing address for U.S. prisoner book requests: Prisoner Literature Project c/o Bound Together Books 1369 Haight St San Francisco, CA 94117 There's more info here on what else prisoners need to include with their requests.