News

NOW SERVING ILLINOIS, KANSAS, AND INDIANA

Great News: As of January 15, we are serving the neighboring Midwestern states of Kansas, Illinois, and our almost neighbor Indiana. As the year progresses, we might consider adding other states in our region.

We very much appreciate everyones patience with this transition as well as the great support shown for our Kids’ Books Initiative in December! We figured that sending books to young readers on the outside was the next best thing to sending books to adult readers on the inside.

Somewhat less great news: Just as we are starting to resume our service, postal rates for media mail will be going up by 12% on January 21, 2024. Any help in dealing with the additional cost of mailing would be truly wonderful. Our donation page on this website has a paypal button. Thank you so very much!

In Solidarity,

The MPB Team

Childrens’ Books On the Way

BOOKS FOR KIDS INITIATIVE

Last month, MPB received a large donation of great children and teenage books in excellent condition. As we are preparing to move from serving incarcerated readers in MO to sending books to surrounding Midwestern states, we asked folks in MO prisons to let us know about their kids (or kids in their families) who might enjoy receiving some of those books.

We are prepared to honor requests that come in during the month of December and plan to send books both before the holidays as well as in early January.

If you would like to help with postage for the Kids’ Books Initiative please go to our donation page. Our goal is to honor every request, and any contribution to do so is much appreciated.

All our best and Happy Holidays!

In Solidarity,

MPB Team

Townhall – Missouri Justice Coalition

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Moving On

Dear All!

Unsurprisingly, we received an extraordinarily large number of requests from incarcerated readers during the weeks prior to the September 25 MODOC deadline. We managed to send everyone books with the deadline in mind.

At this point in time, we are no longer able to send books into Missouri Prisons despite our efforts to appeal to MODOC in Jefferson City as well as wardens in individual facilities in an attempt to be put on the authorized vendor/distributor list.

While a number of wardens were sympathetic to the loss of resources for our readers the fact remains that free books from a volunteer organization are viewed as likely vehicles for contraband and drug infiltration.

We were glad to receive three substantial book donations in October. These will set us up well for moving our efforts to neighboring Midwestern states in 2024.

While we are establishing new out-of-state connections for 2024, we are sending children and teenage books upon request to kids of some of our MO readers during the month of December. Stay tuned for more info on that initiative.

Sharing this excellent article here about book bans & drug problems.