Just a little heads-up on an upcoming event I organized: Not About The Buildings is holding a summer Read-A-Thon to benefit the Providence chapter of Books Through Bars.
Basically, a bunch of people have volunteered to read books over the summer, and we’re looking for people who want to sponsor them. It’s sort like one of those charity bike races where you donate a certain amount of money for every mile the person rides, only without any of that pesky physical activity. There’s 11 readers currently signed up and there should be a couple more by this weekend. Visit the website, choose your favorite reader, and then follow the instructions on how to become a sponsor. If you donate $1 per book, and they read a book a week, that’s $10 by Labor Day, which will go directly to Books Through Bars.
In case you didn’t know, Books Through Bars sends books to some of the two million people that are currently in prisons across the country. They get about a hundred requests a week from prisoners, many of whom are in facilities that don’t have libraries. Unfortunately, shipping is expensive, and they’re having trouble keeping up with all the requests, so anything you can donate would be a great help to them.