for the love of books

In recent months, I have been volunteering for Inside Books Project (IBP), an organization dedicated to supplying prisoners across Texas with reading materials. Incarcerated men and women mail in letters and a volunteer responds by picking books and magazines from the donated library, packaging them up, and writing a letter back. The requests I've gotten have varied, from as general to "I'd like more information on your project," to "I'd like a large-print book about gold-medal winning Olympic gymnasts." In the cases like the latter, you just make do with what's available and hope that they appreciate whatever you send.

This is a great volunteer opportunity for those in Austin, because there is no commitment necessary -- you just show up at the Rhizome Collective off East 5th Street, the headquarters of IBP, during the regularly scheduled volunteer hours: Thursdays and Sundays 7-11 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.-3 p.m. You can also give your own used books or donate money. They especially need books in Spanish. Comic books and drawing books are also popular requests.

The older I get, the more I understand what a beautiful and liberating thing reading is. Giving imprisoned people the power to learn and read -- and most of all to know there are people on the outside who care about them and want to help increase their knowledge and skills -- is quite satisfying and important work.