Thank you to our wonderful supporters and volunteers for working diligently to not only help us pack books this month, but raise funds to send out packages after our postage fund was depleted. We sent out 447 packages this month – that’s over 1,341 books in the hands of incarcerated people in Mississippi!

That’s also around $2,250 spent on postage, so we encourage you and/or your community and church groups to consider being a monthly donor, so that we can keep sending out these books. They truly make a difference in the lives of our incarcerated population.

Thank you to Hunter College in NYC and to the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter at Millsaps College for hosting their own book packing parties this month. They packed over 600 books between these two parties. Woohoo!

Thank you again for your support and volunteerism. We look forward to packing more books with you in May!

April 29th is Independent Bookstore Day, and Big House Books is lucky to have the support of some amazing indie bookstores in the state of Mississippi. Check out our current needs list below, and please consider purchasing from some of our supporters:

Lemuria Books (Jackson, MS) https://www.lemuriabooks.com/

Friendly City Books (Columbus, MS) https://www.friendlycitybooks.com/

Violet Valley Bookstore (Water Valley, MS) https://www.violetvalley.org/

We are happy to report that we sent out over 700 books in March! Thank you to the volunteers who helped fill requests, log packages, and pack books this month, and thank you to those who donated to our postage fund! You can donate money to our postage fund any time through the Donate button on our website, or through our Venmo (@BigHouse-books), CashApp ($bhbms) or PayPal (bighousebooksms@gmail.com).

We have received numerous letters of thanks like the one above. It’s letters like these that keep us coming back week after week. Here’s to another successful month promoting literacy in Mississippi prisons!

We had a busy February with over 440 packages sent out to incarcerated people in Mississippi!

To close out the month, we had a wonderful collaborative volunteer session with 601 For Period Equity where 30 volunteers (many first timers) showed up and packed books and period supplies for incarcerated Mississippians! See highlights below.

We are happy to report that 2023 started off strong, with over 400 packages mailed out in January! That’s 1,200+ books in the hands of incarcerated people in Mississippi!

The last Sunday of January, we had 18 volunteers, many of whom were first timers. They shelved all of our book donations and filled all of our current requests, including requests for our monthly subscribers. These requests just need to be logged in our database, so we can print invoices and shipping labels and mail them out. If you’d like to help us log these requests, come by our location at 133 Millsaps Ave.  this Monday (1/30) and Thursday (2/2) from 5-7 p.m.

As many of you know, postage prices went up this month. Please donate if you can. We don’t want rising prices to stop us from continuing the great work YOU have helped us accomplish!

For those who want to donate books, we’ll be posting an updated needs list soon. Stay tuned!

We are taking a break from our book packing parties for the holidays. Join us on Sunday, January 8th from 12-2 p.m. for our next party. Happy Holidays!