PLP is an all-volunteer organization so needless to way we couldn’t send out thousands of books each year without so many people contributing in different ways to our efforts. Hear from a few of our volunteers…
Berkeley High students interested in law and social justice have participated in multiple book selection sessions this past year in coordination with another local social justice organization The Ahimsa Collective
The students were often intrigued by the letters they were responding to and did their best to find the most appropriate books to fulfil the sometimes very specific or broad requests.
The four students pictured here are off to college in the Fall. We hope they carry a little bit of their experience at PLP with them.
We look forward to hosting more student sessions next year!
The most common requests are for genre fiction (thrillers, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, etc), self-help, business, drawing, graphic novels, science, GED material, exercise, almanacs and so much more. People also ask for some very specific topics and we do our best to fulfill the spirit of the inquiry.
Here is a sample of letters that volunteers responded to recently.
Also we love that he shared it with others at his facility to enjoy.
Thick fantasy/sci-fi novels like “The Starless Crown” are a popular request from incarcerated readers. The more pages to escape into… Thanks again to Tor Publishing for donating multiple copies of this book to PLP!
We are happy to share the following letters that we received during the holidays from book recipients.
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.
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!
Help us celebrate our new, roomier and sun-filled location. We’ve worked hard to create a nice space for volunteers to work as we answer book requests. The walls are covered with bookshelves (of course). Come see for yourself and find out more about what we do!
We will also be selling books as part of a sidewalk sale to raise money to cover postage. T-shirts will be available to purchase. Our all-volunteer group looks forward to showing you around. Join us.
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.
