Friends of the Library Booksale Partners with Prisoner Express to fulfill book requests, and You can Help!

Each year, hundreds of people browse through books at the Friends of the Library Booksale. In fact, it’s one of the largest in the country.

Each year, hundreds of incarcerated people all over the United States send requests for books to Prisoner Express (PE), an organization that works to fill these requests. PE depends entirely on volunteer support to make this possible, and this year YOU can be involved while you shop for used books.

We have this amazing opportunity to use the space BEFORE the book sale is open to the public to fill requests for prisoners.

We have 200 requests from prisoners to fulfill.

Click here to sign-up to volunteer (even if it’s just for 10 minutes!)

Here are the days and ways you can safely participate BEFORE the book sale is open to the public.

Saturday 8 to 10 pm 7/18 – PE Book Day!

We can have up to 20 volunteers come that evening to select books for prisoners.

Volunteers will get one or more letters [their choice] and walk the aisles to select 5 to 7 books per person. We will collect the letters and books at the front of the building. At this time the FOL sale is closed to the public and this event is our first ever PE Book Party at FOL.

Sunday and Monday, 12pm to 6pm  7/19 and 7/20

FOL sale is open to the public. A representative from Prisoner Express will be on hand to give out letters. Volunteers will select books for prisoners. and return books and letters to PE rep.

Tuesday Bag Day  11am to 2pm (or my van is full of books)

Once we have filled the 200 requests volunteers can still assist in selecting books especially on Tuesday Bag Day. Bring your own bag, or get one from us. Fill it up from an assigned section with the best books you can find. You decide!

These books will go into our reserve storage room for the next 300 people who request books.

There are a number of other times that volunteers can come to the sale and select books for PE if these times don’t work for you.

Please sign-up here to volunteer and let us know which day you’ll be stopping by. 

Questions, write to us at  prisonerexpress@gmail.com

Book selectors are encouraged to write a friendly note to the recipients that we include in the book package. This small act of generosity means the world to prisoners. If you know let me know when you plan to come by.

We are most grateful to FOL for making this gathering of books possible.

Please share this email.

Sincerely,
Gary Fine,
Director, Prisoner Express