What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? I first heard about Books to Prisoners at the 2021 Seattle anarchist book fair, took a pamphlet and promptly forgot about it. One day I was going through my bookshelf and I found the pamphlet and decided to get involved. I’d already been involved with the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance and found great personal fulfillment in mutu

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? During the pandemic I was walking in my neighborhood and discovered the BTP sign at the old location on N. 76th Street. Intrigued, I made an appointment to donate books and was invited to a volunteer orientation. I’d recently retired after 40 years of working in education and the performing arts and had been looking for a volunteer

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? Last spring, I heard that BTP was experiencing a backlog in responding to letters after the move to their current location. After reading more about their work, I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for many reasons. Back in college, I had interned at an organization that provided access to higher education classes and tutoring t

Peg is part of a small group of volunteers who come in on Mondays to prepare the shelves for a busy week of volunteer sessions! What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? I had been following BTP for years after doing a search online for non-profits that have a mission for promoting education and literacy, and helping those in need. I supported BTP from afar by reading their

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? After some previous book-adjacent volunteering commitments (library tutor, Reading Partners) had ended, I was looking for something new. BtP makes it so easy to get involved in a sustainable way with the flexible scheduling and self-paced work. Is there anything you especially like about volunteering with us? What are your favorite

Evie (left) is our youngest volunteer! This mother-daughter dynamic duo makes a weekly appearance at BTP to expertly fullfill requests! What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? Kate: I was looking for a volunteer opportunity for my daughter, Evie, and I to do together. I wanted to instill the importance of volunteering and giving back to your community. After a lot of r

Kim began volunteering with us in 2019, following our successful campaign to overturn the Washington State Department of Corrections' decision that April to ban donated books. They came in regularly during the first eight months of COVID to get what requests we were able to fulfill during that lean time ready for mailing. They were on our board for less than two years, but their influence on BtP continues to this day. They showed us that bookstore customers would buy and dona

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? Over the summer, I decided I wanted to volunteer at local libraries and began combing the internet for opportunities. This led to the discovery of the Books to Prisoners website. The mission statement deeply resonated with me and I immediately reached out to contribute. I would not be the person I am today without books. They are in

You don't see the Wednesday morning shift on the weekly sign-up sheet, even though any volunteer is welcome from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. When...

and their hosts at WotCon for raising funds for us at the Wheel of Time fan convention in Columbus OH this weekend. As a gift to anyone who donates $50 or more to Books to Prisoners by default, or any other prison book program you specify, Kate and Michael will record a one-minute greeting with your choice of words, suitable for your phone. If you couldn't make it to Columbus this weekend, but you want a voice recording anyway, go to https://www.katereadingaudiobooks.com/book

The last time we checked in on Roger and Susan Atlas, in 2023, their project to get as many free books as possible into the hands of readers was foundering . Since then, they've turned things around. Roger Atlas explains. When DISCOVERBOOKS went bankrupt, we lost almost our entire supply of 48 tons of books annually which we provide to 400 non-profits. Our largest destination for books was Books to Prisoners. We feared not being able to continue giving at a high enough quanti

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? I actually started volunteering when my kids were...

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any...

Michael Winkelhorst has been volunteering with Books to Prisoners for over eight years. He began when we were still in the church...

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any meaningful way? I remember being quarantined in my small apartment in 2020 while the country contending with tectonic shifts in how it viewed itself brought about by a perfect storm of a pandemic no one knew much about and massive social unrest and global economic decline (I think this is the year we learned about “murder hornets” as well.) I felt

After coming in to wrap packages every Wednesday evening for a couple of years now, Marnie has stepped up to a new level of service....

Books to Prisoners began as a project of the Left Bank Books Collective. Now Left Bank Books is one of our store partners for the Prison Banned Books Week (PBBW) matched new book drive, September 15 - 28. Adrian shares what makes the store so special that they work there for free. How did you get involved with LBB? — I got involved with Left Bank Books as a volunteer for a three-hour shift on Saturdays while I was working full-time at my former job. I wasn’t sure if I would e

Kris has volunteered with Books to Prisoners since 1989. Instead of our usual Featured Volunteer questions, we asked her about what it's...

Our featured volunteer this spring is Jackie. Jackie is a devoted volunteer who always diligently selects the perfect books for each...

Roger and Susan Atlas were our Featured Volunteers for the Month of June 2023. Roger has been volunteering with us since we were in the U District. During quarantine in 2020, Susan filled all the orders for people in Texas state prisons, 30-40% of our total requests, in her garage. In 2017, they found out that Discover Books, an online retailer of used books in Tacoma, donated books they couldn't sell to nonprofits. They opened their home to wholesale deliveries of these book

Our featured volunteer this winter is Kim (she/they). Kim has been volunteering with BTP since June. Recently, she saw how many requests...

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any...

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any...

I became interested in BTP when I first heard about it, decades ago, when the facilities were located in Pioneer Square and volunteers...

Susan began volunteering with us in April. Board member Andy Chan recalls, “When I first met Susan it was clear she took the work very...

You won’t see Roger and Susan during shifts very often, but they make enormous contributions behind the scenes. When “Books to Prisoners”...

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie in to the rest of your life in any...

Thanks to Kate Reading, Micheal Kramer, and the Wheel of Time fans of the https://www.patreon.com/littleband who recently donated over $1200 to BtP. Kate and Michael, who record the audio versions of the Wheel of Time books written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, are long-time BtP supporters. Donate at least $50 to BtP (or another group that sends free used books to prisoners), send them the receipt, and they will record a greeting message of up to 100 words for you.

From 2013 to 2018, Books to Prisoners filled orders out of a basement work space we rented from the University Christian Church at NE 50th St and 15th Ave NE. This has been our only venue so far to provide live music to work by. On Tuesday nights, the Seattle Choral Company rehearsed down the hall. Thursday nights, we listened to jazz musicians from the Boeing Employees Concert Band. During that time, we had lots of volunteers from the University of Washington. We also came t

Sol began an internship with Books to Prisoners in January 2023. She has redone much of our signage and our visual guide to where books...

Craig began volunteering at BtP in July 2022. According to Andy, one of our board members, “From the first time I met Craig he had a...

Andy Chan has volunteered with Book to Prisoners since 1994. This is the first in a series of anecdotes from our history to commemorate our 50th Anniversary . Books to Prisoners has had many homes: at least nine that we can remember. For much of our existence, we have lived rent-free. This was as much for necessity as preference. For decades, BTP was run on a shoestring. The core group of BTP volunteers never much loved fundraising – much preferring to focus on the mission o

What got you interested in BTP to begin with, or what made you start volunteering? Does it tie into the rest of your life in any...

“Anjali is the kind of young person we love to see taking an interest in literacy and reading in prison. Her stick-to-it-iveness is truly...

Sydney began volunteering with Books to Prisoners in June. She comes in several times a month to wrap packages of books prisoners have...

Our intentions of getting Volunteer of the Month interviews out on a monthly basis may have stumbled somewhat, but – thankfully – our...

Hey all, it’s been a little bit since we nominated anybody to be Volunteer of the Month! (Almost a year, in fact.) In spite of – or perhaps because of – how stressful external conditions are right now, we’ve decided to get back into the groove and publish a series of VOTM interviews over the next few months. Right now we’re distributed into bubble shifts – specific volunteers are only working with specific staff members, in order to reduce the number of potential COVID-19 vec

Kim is an experienced volunteer who’s done a wonderful job of connecting BTP to outside organizations, especially her workplace (Queen Anne Book Company.) Many of the books we currently hold in stock were donated through a program she started at QABC; to celebrate, we asked her a couple questions about her experiences volunteering with us. 1. How did you get started with Books to Prisoners? How long have you been volunteering? The Washington DOC book ban pissed me off. That’s

Books to Prisoners is pleased to welcome our summer intern, Logan! Logan is a passionate advocate of prison abolition, and is excited about a lot of the community-led work being done in Seattle around restorative justice and opposition to the new youth jail. They became interested in working with Books to Prisoners because of their interest in prison advocacy and literature, and their belief that prison abolition work must be accompanied by support for people who are already

Our May volunteer of the month, Melanie, has been volunteering with Books to Prisoners since September 2017 and has put in a truly impressive number of hours since then – almost as much as our paid program coordinator! We sat down with Melanie to chat about Books to Prisoners and what inspired her to start volunteering. Here’s what she had to say: What attracted you about Books to Prisoners specifically? There was a large list I was looking at, but I was attracted to BTP bec

Bev and Paris Hi Bev! First of all, how did you get started with Books to Prisoners? About 8 years ago, after leaving my job teaching...

Catherine, wearing traditional Metro Seattle area headgear How did you get started with Books to Prisoners? I learned about Books to...

Peter Yates (left) How long have you been volunteering with Books to Prisoners? I’ve been volunteering for Books to Prisoners for one...

Curtis Cronn When did you start volunteering with Books to Prisoners? I’ve been volunteering for six months now. How did you get involved...

Toby Stansell When did you start volunteering with Books to Prisoners? I’ve been volunteering with Books to Prisoners since August 2014....

Sam Herrera When did you start volunteering with Books to Prisoners? I’ve been volunteering since November 2014. I should probably...

Thank you to everyone who helped to make 2014 a success at Books to Prisoners! What did you help to accomplish last year? In 2014, Books to Prisoners received: 623 requests from women and 10,763 requests from men for a total of 11,386 requests. (That’s more than 31 requests everyday last year!) To fill these requests, 435 volunteers donated 3,300 hours of their time. Together, we packaged over 15,000 donated books to send across the United States. We participated in the 2014

Maria Ovalles How did you learn about Books to Prisoners? I found out about the Books to Prisoners organization via the United Way of...

Marissa Cowden What made you start working at BTP? I was working at a marketing agency and I needed a book fix in my life. Before that I...

What in your past has led you to volunteer for BtP? I love the notion of books going to people who have a strong need and desire for them...