Library Project

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Saco Bay Rotary    Literacy Report           September 2007

                                                                        ------Kitty Ahlquist Chadbourne, Chair

Literacy Initiatives through Rotary have and can take many forms.  Though Saco Bay Rotary has consistently supported Literacy Volunteer Programs and have regularly donated to the local libraries, the one project that has uniquely become ours is the Literacy Initiative at the York County Jail.

About Christmas 2003 we received a notice from Sister Theresa Couture asking for a donation of books suitable for inmates at the jail. I agreed to take on the project and drop off some books to the jail in time for Christmas reading.  I cleaned out several volumes from my personal library and drove to Alfred, Maine.  This jail was the old facility that had been built in the 1970s.  I met briefly with sister at that time.  She was ever so grateful that anyone responded.  There was no library—there was a closet, where she stacked up a few books and picked out some selections to take on her rounds the  jail cells where she was attempting to set up a program for GED.  She told me then of her desire to have some children’s books where the inmate would read the book on tape, and the tape and book would be sent to the inmate’s child to be kept.

So in 2004, I knew Saco Bay Rotary had a worthwhile literacy project that served multiple levels of the population and it was a project that could very easily fall through the cracks if not picked up by us.

By the Summer of 2004 a new facility had been built that housed the York County Jail in Alfred.  Sister Theresa and I had been steadily collecting books to be donated to set up an actual library room in the jail itself.  Sister Theresa lobbied hard for the library room and fortunately received the sympathetic ear of Lt. David Lambert, whom I spoke with as well.  When I first toured the facility with Sister Theresa, it was easy to see how very excited she was to finally have ‘her library.’

I had to go through a lengthy review process before I was granted security clearance to go to the jail library and work there. The library  is situated in the heart of the jail itself and I have to pass three locked doors before entering this 12’ x 14’ room that has been designated as the library.  Though I see some inmates, I do not generally interact with them though I have found trustees very very helpful at times when I have several boxes of books that need to be transferred from my car trunk to the lobby, past security check points and into the library.

The library room itself is between Lt. Lambert’s office and  Sister Theresa’s  educational room. It is across the hall from the laundry where inmates are often working .  The inmates would often wave at me and leave notes requesting specific books.

  The room itself houses two top- to- floor book shelves on the side walls and two standing  shelving units that stand about four feet high situated in the center of the room.  There are also two round conference tables that are used for staff meetings.

Initially fellow Rotarian Pat Lilly and Adam Barber and I processed the boxes of donated books setting up the shelving units similar to bookstores with topical divisions instead of the Dewey Decimal system customary to libraries because we knew the guards would be pulling books from the shelves to deliver to the pods on wheeling carts—and topical divisions would be easier to work with.  Though this system is currently being revised a bit, it is basically the same general system that is easier to use.

Books were donated from all across Southern Maine and are as varied as the donors. Because I knew that Sister Theresa wanted to use the library as a resource room to encourage GED participation and as a means for achieving some behavior modification, Pat and I started to go through the books with that in mind.  Many inmates required easy reading books, books dealing with alcohol and drug addiction, as well as healthy pastime reading.  Some books definitely needed to be culled from the library as unacceptable.  Other books became unacceptable because a frustrated inmate tore out pages.  So books have been regularly discarded.

Each book when it comes in has to be checked over for removal of any attached CD’s or identification that could trace the book back to the former owner.  Some books are unacceptable because of their content.

Initially some of the guards considered the library a waste of space, but the steady good work of good books, worthwhile self-help books and the very real success of the GED program under Sister Theresa’s initiative has brought about a universal acceptance of the library as a vital piece in the Jail itself and a very useful tool to keep the inmates calmer and more productive.

The initiative of inmates reading to their children has continued and is much sought after especially around holidays and birthdays.  These children’s books go directly to Sister Theresa where she works directly with various inmates who select books from the ones she has available.   Invariably, I am struck with the simple truth that I have never met anyone who starts out intending to be a ‘bad parent.’  It simply happens.  The trauma of being separated from young children is a prime time to try to reconnect through the inmate-read-to-tape program.  This also provides some relief to the spouse who is at home with the children.  Furthermore a large percentage of children’s books have a ‘behavior modification’ theme in them—Don’t steal, How to deal with a bully, etc…

When an incarcerated parent reads these books aloud to their child it is sure to have a secondary effect on the inmate himself.

In 2005 Saco Bay Rotary donated a small bookcase that is housed in the front lobby where families come for visitation.  Sister Theresa uses it to house suitable children’s books to occupy children as adults visit.  It has been a very successful addition.

Only recently have funds become available to hire a part time librarian who is paid to come and work in the library a half day a week.  She is looking forward to working with Saco Bay Rotary to keep the library on sure footing and continue to make a difference in the lives of this segment of society that has lost its way.

Since its inception I generally travel the one hour from my home to Alfred one to three times monthly and work on an average of three hours each time.  I usually bring with me one to four boxes of accumulated books to donate.  These books have been donated by area Rotarians or purchased by me at used book centers.  General topics included in the book collection involve fiction: classics, adventure, mystery, romance, comedy; non-fiction: environmental, biographies, inspirational, historic accounts, self-help (relationship oriented & educational); children’s books and easier reading. We always have need for dictionaries.

I hope this helps with your evaluation of the project.

Kitty Ahlquist Chadbourne

As important, if not more so, is the volunteerism we have provided to organize and maintain the prison library. All the books are donated. Usually, Sister Theresa is the one beating the bushes for donations of books although we have supported her in that way as well. The actual work centers around unpacking the donated books and getting them on the shelves in some kind of order so that when a special request is made, the sheriff’s deputies who are handing out the books will know where to look. We also put returned books back on the shelves. The prison staff truly appreciates the work we do.

Why do we do it? I can’t speak for Pat Lilly or Kitty Chadbourne (without whom this project doesn’t exist), but for myself  I’d say that in books there’s hope and, dare I say, the chance of escape, if only for a short time. At the very least, no matter what your station in life, you can always find a character in literature that is worse off than you are.