the prison project

The PRISON PROJECT, working in accordance with Urantia Foundation, will see that one copy of The Urantia Book goes to a prison library for every $5 in donations received for that purpose.

Check out also the Prison Study Group Project

As of February 1, 1999, the Prison Project has placed a copy of The Urantia Book in every prison in the United States. This amazing accomplishment was made possible in only twenty-two months with the contribution of thousands of dollars by hundreds of Urantia Book readers and believers, and with the cooperation of The Urantia Foundation, who made books available to this project for the $5 postage fee.

As a result, hundreds of prison chaplains have become familiar with the book, study groups are forming in prisons, and a newsletter forum for prisoner- readers to communicate with each other is being formulated.

There is still a need for books to be replaced in prison libraries as these books disappear, and as readership grows within prison walls. The Urantia Foundation will fulfill these requests made by the prison librarians and chaplains with books at a discounted rate. Donations for this purpose may be sent directly to the Foundation.

This concludes the Prison Project in its present form, as the time has come for us to turn our attention to other ministries. We encourage all of you who have donated to this project to monitor, when possible, the prisons who benefitted from your generosity, and help the librarians replace the books when necessary.

...The Prison Project has had money pour through the doors lately. We're down to Texas and Connecticut, with still some to do in North Carolina and Georgia. And then we'll have reached our goal. Remarkable. Then what? Start over again, I guess. Prison librarians are beginning to request additional copies, and the Foundation is beginning to squeak. ha.

The program received enough donations in the first six months to send a book to EVERY federal correctional institution in the country. Now we're donating books to the libraries of the state institutions. As of the first of May 1998, we have placed a book in every prison in twenty states.

Publicity from The Journal brought in hundreds of dollars of donations. Our immediate goal of a book in every prison in America is in sight. Many readers have written to say they found The URANTIA Book while in prison. And when they can, they enclose a $5 bill to pass the program on to the next inmate. Prisons have called asking for additional books, both in English and in Spanish. Prisons are filled with spiritually thirsty souls who desperately need the revelation.

There is no formal fund raising program. Ancillary donations are being used for administrative purposes, and do not impinge upon the five-dollar book placement fund. If you or your group would like to participate, one book will be placed in a prison library for every five-dollar donation. Make checks payable to The URANTIA Foundation, and send them to Liz Engstrom at PO Box 5684, Eugene, OR 97405. Requests to provide books to specific institutions will be honored if possible.

Since its inception last April, The Prison Project has placed one or more copies of The URANTIA Book to 238 prisons, including all Federal prisons in the United States, 112 state prisons and seven Canadian facilities. We have sent books to every prison in the state of: Maryland, Wyoming, Utah, Hawaii, Arizona, Louisiana, Idaho, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Delaware and Oregon. Many of these prisons have been outfitted with English editions as well as translation editions. One prison librarian called and requested four English copies and four Spanish copies, saying it was the most popular book in their library.

We have had three people "adopt" the prisons in their state and another person adopted one prison as his own personal ministry, intending to even teach classes on The URANTIA Book there. One study group passes the hat and sends me a check for $100 every six months. Two of their members discovered the book while they were in prison.

This is how it works: For every five-dollar donation you make to the Prison Project, one URANTIA Book will be donated to a prison (Seven dollars for a Canadian prison). Special requests for specific institutions will be honored if possible.

Ideally, readers will eventually "adopt" or take personal responsibility for a prison, a state or a region, and once the books are placed, the adopting person, family, study group or association will make an annual phone call to the prison librarian to see if they need to have their books replaced, and then do that, through the Foundation.

There are still hundreds of prisons left in the US to cover before we can seriously begin work elsewhere in the world. The mission of The Prison Project is: to place a URANTIA Book in every prison in the world. If you would like to adopt a state or a region, you may call me (541) 484-1682, and I’ll let you know how many prisons that entails. You may either contact them directly or send me the money for the initial placements, and merely follow up one year later.

Thanks to Liz Engstrom for the great effort you’ve put into this and to all those who’ve participated. What a joy it is to see what can be achieved when folks decide to pull together and put their minds to a project like this. It just takes one person to start it and to drive it—that’s leadership. Well done.

Here’s a challenge: How about someone start a project similar to the prison one on university libraries? Think of all those young, fresh minds searching for material for their philosophy and comparitive religious studies. If someone will take on the role Liz is taking on for the prisons, I’ll coordinate the URANTIA Foundation side of it.

The program to provide copies of The Urantia Book to individual prisoners for a $5.00 fee has been temporarily suspended. The exhaustion of our damaged books, (the source of the prison books) has created this situation. This, however has not affected the placement of books in prison libraries.

For many years the Foundation has sponsored a general Library Placement Program in which individual readers may request a free copy of The Urantia Book and The Urantia Book Concordance to be placed in a library of their choice.

A few years ago, Liz Engstrom undertook a leadership role in an exceedingly successful project of placing the book, at $5.00 per copy, in prison libraries within the United States.

To date no one has targeted University libraries so we are presently seeking someone to assume leadership of this project to place the book in College and University Libraries around the world. If you or someone you know would be interested in this project, please let us know.

URANTIA Foundation, urantia@www.urantia.org
533 Diversey Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60614 USA. Phone: (773) 525-3319 Fax: (773) 525-7739