Book club get started quick. It exists because of one young man who wanted to give back but go his name was glenn and was on death row in texas at the age of 16. He wrote a letter to kelly taylor and myself at the time when we were Television News producers in dc at australia broadcasting and basically said i want to stay alive and i want the world to know how many men of color are on death row. He was next ordinary person and human being. And then they became friends. She is a book lover they would read the same book and discuss it by letters. So the idea for the book club was born because after he was executed in 2000, he wanted us to work with the youth charges we started free mines just for the boys that are in the adult criminal legal system. But then the insatiable curiosity and hunger for knowledge and learning took over and young men wanted to keep it going so eventually starting 2002 and 2005 we became an official nonprofit. Host how many prisons or jails around the country quick. Right now we are just in washington dc but we are open to replicate. We have a lot of other prisons call us on advice how to start a book club like this which we love and a curriculum guide that we just developed. We hope it spreads like wildfire in a good way and we hope internationally because this analogy is so simple and powerful. Host what does it do quick. When you see yourself in a book, you have a profound transformation that i am not alone with what im going through. I can make sense of it and heal from a traumatic experience that i have been through. I have been inspired from what the characters in the book came through and i can connect to another person. Those books are just tools but to build a community so our model is different than other book clubs it is the non reader and writer and a way to engage them with literature they can immediately relate to and connect with. Host are you responsible for this book this month quick. We have a book ballot that people suggest ideas. We love to hear about new titles and then the members vote for what they want to read. Host you mentioned members of free mines outside of jail quick. No. Inside because dc is not a state our residents go all across the country to federal prisons. We ship books so they get one book a month and they discuss it through letter and in a newsletter and then when they come home we have a reentry book club every wednesday night and we discuss books about the situations facing reentry that are difficult. When other prisons call me to say i want to start a i say you have to do it all the way through reentry we do job placement and training and personal skill building. We are very very referenced i say thats okay just start the book club because it is such a powerful and transformative personal awakening anybody who has a Book Club Member wants to go on and share it with others. You read a book and now you are praised. Host how do you get the books quick. We have incredibly generous individual donors. We have an Amazon Wish List and anybody can donate and we put the books on and amazing people buy and those that we ship to the federal prisons, we use amazon barnes noble so we need 20 but we spent 50000 a year in books. Host is a fulltime now quick. It is now. With the foundation we have ten staff and then book club facilitators. Host what are some of the restrictions on what kinds of books or how you ship them cracks it is an absolute open door but it is not. So there is a perception they will encourage the incarcerated person to do negative things. So we get a lot of pushback from some titles that are classics and we are in a constant state of persuasion that that book, trust me, your incarcerated population outcomes will soar. You will have a facility that is a place of learning but what officials the other issue and that we have this now but as they are shipped in so from my understanding so we urge the administrators to find a better screening methods and look toward the staff. Host tim obrien but those are all paperback. Yes if there is a book they want to read but it is break your heart but it is so much more important to read the pages than the cover but dont tell the authors. Host do you tell them youre reading their books quick. All the time we havent told tim obrien but we have authors come in on a regular basis and that is a big part of the program of author visits weve had jonathan, weve had phil harper and Jason Reynolds recently. We have had so many our local hero. At first they are in disbelief that the author took the time out to connect with them and then they are completely motivated and inspired to write their own book which is great which is exactly what we want so be the author of your own life if you dont tell your story somebody else will say it. And then to be told by the courts so you have to take back the narrative of your own life by somebody else who has done that and say i can do that because it is a source of failure there isnt enough reals one resource support to have a challenge but many members have taught themselves so you want to find content that is so compelling to say thats my street in washington dc. I just want people to know it is a voracious appetite for any kind of book. My Favorite Book is anyone that they cannot help to share how much it impacted them when they were flying in the dirt and they just want to be able to share that but thats a safe way and then they say you have to put a mask on you have to survive tha that. It is brutal and then to take off the mask and leave those with abilities and the pain thats inside but you could say im just talking about a book like i am in a book club not a therapy session and truly that is the brilliance of that discussion if you could just share a part of you and share in the process. You have to earn a seat quick. No. Anybody can come some of them are just i want to leave my cell of course. But the magic of books then you want to come because you want to talk about the book and it is incredible to me and im only so wrong where it leads you to these places that you would never think about. Okay well talk about these themes. No. It is so far field. Host the other half of it is the writing. We did that intentionally in the beginning because we had so many nonreaders we wanted them to have another way to express themselves the whole format so everybody can participate with meditation, relaxing, that game to have that childlike play that the members have been robbed of literally those who could not play a fun game but it also helps to know the vocabulary and helps with your literacy and then we discussed the book and then the writing for somebody who is shy or has anxiety they can write they could share but somebody else could read it so whatever way to express yoursel yourself. Host that was the cofounder of the free mines book club up next you will hear from amy lopez who is one of the driving forces to be allowed in the jail the Deputy Director of the Dc Department of corrections. When you talk to the free mines members they will tell you how being a member has literally saved their lives. One of the facilities they moved him onto an Education Unit where he could be a tutor and take College Courses that week so he said i dont want to try this unit and i said try it the next time he he said can i talk to you . When i was first incarcerated in the federal system i became a free mines members to the newsletter and there is a poem that literally saved my life so inside the federal institution he was considering suicide and reads a poem and it was a beacon for him. Then he meets another resident who was here on a trial and that was the individual who wrote the poem years before and he said it is you . So how do you like it now . But are those moments that we dont realize to impact the people that are separated from their families or community in our case. To go out into the country in several different states who may never see their family and free mind is a good example and then to bring the community wherever they go across the country statistically those who are incarcerated its like 60 percent now have a High School Diploma or equivalency many start at a fifth grade level reading level which is much different than the general population. So there is a skill gaps in the informational Educational Program so you dont start with that level of work of where they dropped out with a didnt have education to fill the gap i was tell the students what would you do if you wanted to get better at a jump shot you will practice to get better at reading you have to practice but then we see a lie and Developmental Education they know sight words but they dont know what it means or the deeper meaning. If your seating in a cell for ten years you could recognize it but to understand that in the context of the author intended but with a group of people and discussing that word then you understand that and you have a greater understanding but not what it means to you or to the community so academically reading skills grow exponentially. The other thing the book club does is brings community. If they cannot go to dc how do we get dc to them . And going into federal institutions and then they go back home as like a family you can depend on sometimes its like working in a junior high. [laughter] what i love about my director here is when he was recruiting me he said what i would like to see is less incarceration and corrections environment and more learning environment but a facility that looks and sounds like a school. He was a teacher in the beginning of his career so it was compelling to do that and i think were on our way. I dont look at them as inmates but as students. Host amy lopez Deputy Director of washington Dc Department of corrections. Up next interview we did with danielle who is the librarian at the jail that the jail branches included as part of the Public Library system and talks about her experience as a jail librarian and her work with the free mines book club. This is the dc jail Branch Library october 2015 we began providing services very 2016. Host how many books are in the branch quick. 15000 titles a combination of what you are seeing physically and with those Housing Units across both buildings so the general population in this building they are afforded the opportunity to come down here once a week on the segregated housing unit that they cannot physically come down to us that we have weekly Ebook Service so we can deliver them books a mobile book cart service at cvs and thats on a once a week schedule we really enjoy having a space to check out new books or popular books as a way to help them stay connected with family members or people in the community. Host what are the more popular titles quick. With people like to read on the street summer always popular like James Patterson of course hunger games and harry potter are popular a lot of people were interested in crazy rich asians those that have not seen the trailers on tv bill oreilly was very popular killing kennedy killing jesus or killing lincoln so just based off the conversation i have had with patrons some of them were lifelong readers this was an opportunity to continue doing so but those who never had exposure to reading before are discovering that for the first time. So we do a book to movie club where we have ten inmates at a time will all read the same book will watch a film adaptation and also just finished running a book club which was an eight week long session with an associate where she read short stories each week and then to reflect on the short stories. But there is a connection quick. Yes the man who came up town features a correctional librarian. Host did he talk to about your work quick. Yes. We spent a lot of time together back when this is just an idea before the process even started. He was always a supporter for the dc Public Library always has been a supporter so this is something he has been dreaming of doing for quite some time and then finally was able to make that idea into a fiction book. But attracting me in general to have the opportunity to provide service to underserved populations and fortunately it just opened up to me and i realize that the way to serve people that need service that often get overlooked. Host a librarian for the dc library cap next is the free mines Book Club Meeting itself discussing the bestselling novel about the vietnam war and stay tuned after the meeting where we will talk with two inmates who share their thoughts about what being a book club while incarcerated means to them. Everybody get seated. Now imagine a snowy street at night with falling snowflakes one of the most peaceful experiences there is. Everybody closure eyes. Get comfortable with your feet on the ground your hands in your lap you are bundled up wearing jeans with a soft cotton tshirt on your skin on top of that is your favorite hoodie on top of that is a fluffy down jacket in a warm hat to cover your ears for the you are standing on a path with streetlamps and you take a deep breath in and feel the cold fresh air in your lungs to make sure feel healthy and alive. Take another breath and let it out. To feel cold and energized as the snow falls gently all around you the only thing you hear is the snowflake landing on your jacket. It absorbs all the sound you feel safe and protected like in a snowy cocoon you decide to walk down the road you are wearing brandnew boots and they make perfect crunching sounds in the snow then you stop and lean your head back you see the snowflakes falling up and down and they are mesmerizing and so beautiful thick and heavy flowing down to your face one lands on your eyelashes the open your mouth and it lands on the center of your tongue quickly before it disappears it is cold you feel the magic of the winter to breathe in the cold air and then breathe out. You can come back to this place any time you want to gradually or slowly bring your attention back to the room and open your eyes. What places came up specifically . Every time i meditate i could feel the sun. So even if we go to a snowy place thats where you come back to . So even if we go to a snowy place thats where you come back to . But the Charlie Brown special if they are sitting there watching Charlie Brown. Do you all tend to do these meditations on your own . What do they do in the space like this . So the only time that i can get a piece of mind because sometimes it can get noisy so i do get that opportunity to meditate on saturday it is really a piece of mind but at the same time to show i am who i am. Anybody else . When i go into the cell at night just to listen to the music i am with my thoughts slow like they were just saying yes. Said thats like to be incarcerated it takes you to certain places where you feel confident from what it will take to free your mind. There are so many things that can distract you all the time to be on social media and in these moments that i do meditation most consistently