This is by no means a perfect measure, but if you live in the United States, you live on average less than two and a half miles from your nearest public library. Even if you're farther away or you're a homebody, chances are a library in your area gives you access online to thousands of e-books, movies, music. I have to admit I'm a bit of a library fanatic and I'm spoiled. I live a few blocks away from my old college library and alumni get in free. So if I don't learn about how some of the most prominent scholars in history managed to escape Europe to America during World War II or if I'm reminiscing about reading Catcher in the Rye in High School and I want to read more stuff by JD Salinger, I have access to this, M. Miss and this. But if you're in jail or prison, you don't have internet and the only library you have access to looks more like this. Jails and prisons usually don't make book buying a priority in their budgets, so libraries are scant or sometimes non-existent. So if you want a particular book or a particular subject, you have to find someone who's willing to send it to you and that person needs to have money to buy the book and ship it and they need to know the rules for book donations, which are Byzantine and different in every state and if they don't follow the rules, the book doesn't reach you. This is where the prison book program comes in. There are Massachusetts based nonprofit that responds directly to requests from prisoners, figures out the rules for each state and sends books for free. It's a labor of love for them. They have a few paid staff members, but mostly they run on an army of volunteers up to 35 people four times a week, sorting requests and sending books. And their work is paying off. In 2022, the prison book program donated over 53,000 and they now donate to prisons in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam. They've also expanded beyond prisons to places like psychiatric hospitals where people can be involuntarily committed, but there's still plenty of requests to fill. The highest need items right now include how-to books on exercising, playing instruments, doing origami, and running role playing games. There are also people who want LGBTQ plus fiction or books in Spanish, or the ever-popular webster's dictionary. The prison book program also sent me some thank you letters they've gotten. One that really sticks with me is this person who's just nerding out about all they learned from a signed copy of Doris Kern's Goodwin's biography of Abraham Lincoln. They write, if you were ever in touch again with Mrs. Goodwin, please relate that I grew up in Illinois, Land of Lincoln, and by virtue of our required state history learning in school, and an adult interest in the American Civil War, I believed I possessed a better-than-average knowledge of Abraham Lincoln. Wrong. I love that this writer can be a lifelong learner in scholar, even in a place as harsh as prison. And I know there are a lot of people who will look at this letter and say, wait, this is a criminal. This is a person who hurt someone. Why should we give them free stuff? Well, there's data I could give you about how knowledge and mental well-being lower recidivism rates, but I also just think everyone deserves to learn and grow, and books are a big part of learning and growing. A part of defining yourself is more than the worst thing you've ever done. So I hope you'll consider voting for the prison book program in this year's project for awesome. I'll put the link to vote in the dooblydoo plus a link to the PPP website where you can buy stuff from their online wish lists. Thanks.