We go on weekdays too
80% of incarcerated women in Texas are mothers. Visits for many families are often difficult or impossible because of cost and distance.
Women’s Storybook Project prison program helps incarcerated mothers maintain contact with and bring comfort to their children. We help these mothers record stories and messages of love for their children and then mail the recordings along with the books so the children can hear their mother’s voice and know that she is thinking of them. Here’s a video shot by news station WFAA in Dallas of our program in action.
Mothers earn their way into the Storybook program through good behavior. Once a month, for six months, they meet with volunteers on a Saturday or weekday to choose and record a book for each of their children between the ages of 0 and 14. Mothers can reapply for the program as long as they qualify.
Volunteers from Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and even as far away as Dallas and Fort Worth meet on the second or third Saturday of the month and carpool to one of the 11 prisons served by WSP. Though Texas is a large state, the women’s prisons are all located in central or east Texas. WSP currently serves about 16% of the 10,000 incarcerated mothers with children.