Volunteer with One Brick Boston at the Prison Book Program!

Save to Favorites

Volunteer with One Brick Boston at the Prison Books Program! To attend, you must RSVP on our website at: https://onebrick.org/node/2278202

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

The goals of the Prison Book Program are to encourage literacy, and support the prisoners' interest in this to the best of our ability through our resources and privileges as the un-incarcerated through filling their requests for books and other educational materials. Volunteers will read letters from prisoners, fill their book requests, and package the books to be shipped.

WHAT WE'LL BE DOING:

Responding to prisoner requests for books: Picking, Invoicing and Packing - accounts for approximately 90% of the work we do during our volunteer sessions.

Volunteers must be able to do one of these jobs to volunteer:

- Pickers read a prisoner’s hand-written request and find appropriate books in the book inventory. High school-level reading skills and a love of books are all you need to do this job.

- Invoicers make sure that the chosen books are appropriate and do not contain any forbidden items. If they are good to go, they fill out an invoice. People who can read at least at the high school-level, have legible handwriting and good attention to detail are great candidates for this job.

- Packers prepare the books for mailing. They wrap the books in brown paper and address the package.

Other tasks: Occasionally volunteers help with other tasks such as processing book donations and incoming mail.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:

The Prison Book Program Core Members will provide a volunteer orientation for new volunteers, which will include training in the tasks to be completed for that shift. Cleanup begins at 8:45 p.m. and the volunteer event concludes at 9 p.m.

NOTE: Unfortunately this event is not wheelchair accessible. We do our best to ensure as many events as possible are accessible. The nonprofit can accommodate volunteers who can do light lifting, counting, and sorting. If you have specific questions in this area, please contact the event manager.

WHERE TO MEET:

The volunteer event is held in the basement of the United First Parish Church (Church Of Presidents) at 1306 Hancock Street Quincy, MA 02169. The nearest MBTA stop is the Quincy Center T Station on the Braintree branch of the Red Line. When you arrive at the church, please use the basement door on Temple Street, which is on the right side of the building (if you are looking at the doors to the sanctuary), towards the back of the building near the traffic light. It is across the street from the "Quincy Market" convenience store. Please knock and/or ring the doorbell and someone will let you in.

The Event Manager will contact all volunteers to provide additional details on the meeting location as the event draws nearer.

PRISON BOOK PROGRAM: Prison Book Program gives books to individual prisoners in the United States. Prisoners have limited access to educational materials, and we provide them with free books for personal development during incarceration. We do so because education is a powerful tool that reduces the likelihood that a prisoner will return to the prison system.