MORGANTOWN – The Appalachian Prison Book Project will hold its third annual sponsor/holiday cheer event, sponsor an incarcerated reader, in December.

Founded in 2004, APBP—its offices are on the second floor of the Aull Center, next to the Morgantown Public Library—has shipped more than 70,000 books to inmates at about 200 participating federal, state and local facilities in West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee, said APBP digital communications coordinator Lydia Welker.

Sponsoring an incarcerated reader, “is only a small part of it but it’s pretty exciting,” she said.

Each book sent to an inmate contains what they call a half sheet containing an explanation of the book. Book donors can write a message on the half sheet.

But people who donate money online are not allowed to do so, Welker said. “So this is an opportunity to include a message of hope or cheer or holiday cheer with every donation.”

Donations for this event will be accepted December 3-7. These messages will be printed. And at the Dec. 14 wrapping party at First Presbyterian Church across the street, volunteers will write each message on a half-sheet on behalf of the donor to include with the books they wrap and send out.

Donations are $10 and their goal is to raise $2,500 for this event to send out 250 books, she said.

Inmates’ privacy is protected and donors don’t know who will receive a book they sponsor, she said, but they can attach their name to their message if they want.

APBP receives about 200 book requests per week from inmates, Welker said. The inmate can specify a genre, an author, maybe even a title. “We have wall to wall shelves full of books that people have donated to us.” The volunteers – the staff are all volunteers – read the letters and try to find the best match and post it.

For this holiday cheer event, they will choose a random selection of recent letters and include the holiday wishes with them.

“People can get involved by donating to the fundraiser or coming to the closing party if they’re in Morgantown,” she said.

Inmates often send some comments to APBP about what it means to them to receive a book. Here are some recent comments from inmates in West Virginia facilities.

“I was quite low on energy this afternoon. Preparation for my creative writing course went 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 consists.”

“Thank you so much for all you have done for me. Because of your book program sending me ‘Michie’s West Virginia Code Annotated’ I was able to seek a change of sentence from life without parole to parole eligibility after serving 15 In other words, you helped save my life.”

“I stayed up and read the book all night. I really enjoyed the book and I thank you again. I love to read. I have one more request, for a Scrabble dictionary that would stop a lot of fighting here when they play the game.”

“As an intern doing time, I pass the time by reading because it keeps me out of trouble and it opens my mind to new things. When I get into a good book, I am transported away from this place to the places in the books. I read about 2 to 3 books a week.”

For information about APBP and how to donate, go to https://appalachianprisonbookproject.org.