Based in Downtown Morgantown, the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) is an organization dedicated to educating people who are incarcerated through mailing books and education programs within the region.
Since its inception in 2004, the reach and successes of the project has extended to 200 prisons and jails in six states across Appalachia.
The organization has continued to work under the mission of education according to Lydia Welker, APBP digital communications coordinator.
“We’re committed to the idea that access to books and education, literature, reading materials, these are human rights, and everyone deserves to have them including people behind bars,” she said.
APBP was developed from a graduate course focusing on the history of literature and imprisonment taught by Katy Ryan, a professor in the English department at WVU.
An envelope and art sent by an incarcerated man to Appalachian Prison Book Project as a thank-you.
The project mailed its first book in 2006 and has since mailed over 65,000 to people who are incarcerated in Appalachia.
The project is fully funded by donations and runs on volunteer work. Training sessions for new volunteers are held on Saturday mornings at the Aull Center located at 351 Spruce St.
Volunteers work on their own schedules, and students can gain service hours working with APBP.
Within the Aull Center, APBP’s headquarters, the team behind the book project sorts through letters and donations, packaging them to meet prison or jail requirements so they can be shipped to their new owners.
People who are incarcerated reach the organization through letters to their P.O. box and request books ranging from how-to’s, novels, non-fiction and historical works. The most popularly requested book is a paperback English dictionary, Welker said.
Efforts of the project also include book drives, book wrapping events, book clubs and outreach to prisons and jails throughout the region.
An Appalachian Prison Book Project volunteer prepares a package for delivery.
Prisons and jails have their own rules and regulations about permitted items, so the organization caters to letters on an individual basis.
Some prisons are open to the project and allow book clubs, while others will seldom let a book inside.
“The challenge is that it’s very difficult to send books into prisons and jails. The federal justice system has their own rules about what books can be allowed and about how to get books into places. States have their own rules, counties, cities, and then it often comes down to the discretion of the warden at a facility or the person working in the mailroom who has the authority to reject a book anytime for basically any reason,” Welker said.
People who are incarcerated who receive a book will likely write a letter to APBP as a way to give thanks for their work. The thank you letters sometimes include art.
“I was rather unenergetic this afternoon. The preparations for my creative writing class were going well, but I needed a boost; your extraordinary gift of the book The Writer’s Way by Sara Maitland arrived and my day is brighter, the class will be stronger, and your legacy of helpfulness endures,” an incarcerated individual in West Virginia said in a letter to the organization.
According to Welker, the APBP is “deeply grateful for our volunteers, donors, and supporters, both near and far.”
For more information or to get involved with the organization, visit the organization’s website.
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