Posted by Hemant Mehta in My friend Leslie Zukor (of Reed College in Oregon) has been working on a service project for the past couple years. She has been acquiring atheist books to send to prisoners. It’s a response to the abundant amount of religious material and I-found-Jesus stories you hear so much about in jail.
She’s been pretty successful so far. Over 1,000 books have been received and donated to several prisons across the country. Last year, she earned the “Best Service Project” award from the Secular Student Alliance. She even received positive responses from atheist authors:
On behalf of our club [at Reed College], I wrote to noted authors in the Freethought Movement. The volume of replies was equally astounding: I had about a 90% success rate. We soon received donations from Paul Kurtz, Richard Carrier, Dan Barker, Michael Shermer, Chris Mooney, Freeman Dyson, and Annie Laurie Gaylor, to name but a few.
She recently received a letter from a prisoner who had received some of these books. It’s worth hearing what he has to say:
If you’re able, please consider donating freethought books to Leslie so she can continue this project. Information on how to do that is at the bottom of this article.
[tags]atheist, atheism, humanist, freethinker, volunteer, service, project, August Brunsman[/tags]
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Awesome idea. Kudos to Leslie. I’m sure I’ll have some books to donate.
Let’s not forget why these criminals are in prison. Because they are criminals. They are not there to be entertained by literature and such, they are there to pay a debt to society. Some of these inmates have actually hurt people. Some have also hurt children. You know what, maybe you’re right. Let’s give these inmates as much as we can. In fact, give them all internet access as well. Why not let child molestors and murders chat with all of our children. wake up!
[...] Freethought Books to Prisoners [...]