Freethought Books Project
A reader has let me know of this project, and it seems to be worthy of your support. It provides books, pen pals and other services to atheists in prison, as well as to other institutions and individuals in need. Founded in 2005 by Leslie Zukor, a board member of the Secular Student Alliance. In the words of Peter Nothnagle, “the Project seeks to collect books by atheist writers to be distributed to interested prison inmates.” This link will connect you to the Freethought Books Project. According to the project home page:
Book donation update as of November 2009: Collected 2,900 books for prisoners, mental institutions, and others in need. Filled requests from about 50 inmates. Sent 1,600 books to prison-donating organizations and sent 500 books to individual prisoners.
As I say, the Freethought Books Project seems to me likely worthy of your support, especially if you are an American atheist, nonbeliever, philosophical naturalist, freethinker, or however you describe your position.
Thank you for bringing this to your readers, Eric. I’d like to point out that I learned of the Freethought Books Project by way of the excellent Daylight Atheism blog.
Through the FBP pen-pal program I have met a fascinating individual, who is serving a 15-year sentence in god-soaked Texas. We exchange letters, and I have been able to send him books and articles (Hitchens’ The Portable Atheist was the first book I sent — apparently it wasn’t available in the prison library!). I like to think that not only am I helping out a fellow non-believer, but that these materials and ideas will ripple outward to other prisoners, and even staff, who may find them enlightening.
Your hyperempiricist reader in Iowa,
Peter Nothnagle
Eric
Thank you for letting me know about this; I/m going to have a pen pal.
Veronica
Hm. Sounds like a neat organization.
I’m not sure I have the time to devote to the pen-pal aspect at the moment (though the idea’s filed away for the hopefully-near future), but I’m on my way to Amazon right now!
Since I prefer to purchase books from my local independent bookstore rather than online, and because mailing a book from Canada can sometimes cost more than the value of the book, I decided to donate money through PayPal.