The Prison Books Project is an organization that provides books to incarcerated individuals in New York State, by request. People who are incarcerated in area prisons can use free postcards or simply write to the P.O. Box to request books or book recommendations. The project partners with local bookstores so that patrons can sponsor the books, and the project ships them back to the requester, all free of charge. Since February 2020, the project has sent over 3000 books to folks incarcerated in the Hudson Valley and beyond.
Our Involvement
Annmarie is one of the founders of the Beacon Prison Books Project, and a current board member.
The original project logo, identity, and print collateral was developed by Will Brady, one of our favorite designers and collaborators.
Working from Will’s original design direction, Annmarie developed the project’s streamlined website, with a focus on communicating the mission statement and providing links to donate.
In addition to a number of administrative duties, as part of her ongoing commitment to the project, she maintains the project site, and has developed in-store signage, flyers, and info sheets.
This year, there has been an explosion in requests and interest in the project. To meet the increased demand, fellow project volunteer (and accomplished developer) Michal Mart has built an extensive custom application with Airtable to keep tabs on each and every request throughout the fulfillment cycle. It unites all the participating stores and volunteers, provides valuable analytics and accountability, and — perhaps most importantly — dramatically streamlines operations, allowing for greater capacity to fulfill requests.
During the development of this application and as part of onboarding new volunteers to the leadership, Annmarie has advised on project history, strategy, and specific information about bookstore logistics.
Both Annmarie and Gabe do a significant amount of pro-bono and volunteer design, web development, and admin for local organizations, and are dedicated to continuing this work.
More About This Project
View the website
Recent Press
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