Inside Books Project is an organization that sends free books to Texas prisoners. Prisoners write a letter (sometimes in Spanish) requesting books. Volunteers read the letters and send each prisoner a package of books, hopefully matching the prisoner’s request. Prisoners can request books four or five times a year.
All manner of fiction and nonfiction titles are requested and last year Inside Books sent 32,000 books to Texas prisoners. Most of the books sent are donated to Inside Books by individuals, including First UU congregants who have donated thousands of books to Inside Books over the years. Thank you! A few books are purchased, such as tradecraft books that can help prisoners gain employment upon release. Inside Books also produces and prints royalty-free pamphlets on topics like starting a business, drawing, equipment-free exercise, basic legal terminology and process, Dungeons and Dragons basic rules, COVID information from the CDC, and LGBTQ resources.
This year Inside Books also delivered numerous carloads of books to Texas Department of Corrections Central Library in Huntsville. The Central Library then sends books out to libraries at various Texas state prisons, although not every prison has a library. In addition to state prisons, Inside Books Project delivered carloads of books to 12 central Texas County Jails. Jails generally loan books more informally and let prisoners choose from book carts that circulate.
75% of Inside Book’s expenses go to pay for mailing books and for rent at the church that hosts the organization.
Inside Books gets love letters from prisoners who have received the perfect book at just the right moment in their lives. Books light up the darkness of incarceration and connect prisoners to the world of possibility. Thanks for your generous support of this organization.
If you have books to donate to Inside Books Project, you can put them in the Inside Books Project tub in our church Welcome Center or you can take them directly to Inside Books Project. Inside Books Project operates out of a church on the corner of Airport and 14 1/2 Street. The book collection bin is outside on the Airport side of the church.
