Virtual Dictionary Drive - Help Us Buy 1000!

Number of Dictionaries Funded So Far

Dictionaries fly off our shelves as fast as people donate them. We can't keep up with the demand. So we are asking you to support our "Online Dictionary Drive." Purchased wholesale in a lot of 1000, a college-level version is just $2.74 (45% off retail price). We are aiming to buy 1000 which will last us about a year.

In the hands of a struggling reader, a dictionary grants access to knowledge that would be otherwise inaccessible. A dictionary is crucial to the development of reading and communication skills for the large percentage of inmates with low-level literacy skills. See our Prisoner Writings Blog for one inmate's essay on how the dictionary changed his life.

For less than the cost of coffee and a bagel, you can support a prisoner in improving his reading skills and understanding of the world. Click a button below to make an online donation through PayPal today!

We asked prisoners about their use of dictionaries and here's what one person told us:

"Recently I was studying a textbook on business administration. I jotted down three words from the book I did not know and looked them up in the dictionary. They were:

Aggregate—The total amount assembled
Concatenation—the state of being connected, as in a chain
Truncate—To shorten by cutting off a part

Although my original encounter with these words was in a book on business administration, I can understand how they could be used in other contexts. For instance:

The aggregate of humanity must stand as a concatenation with one another and not truncate itself by ousting, shunning, or permanently locking out those who possess the potential to contribute to the betterment of society. "

We also asked prisoners what words they were looking up and here's a sampling..

Aardvark
Aggregate
Apposite
Benediction
Concatenation
Conflates
Conscience
Ennui
Fogey
Imagination
Intelligentsia
Lough
Manque
Marplot
Ontological
Passion Week
Penmanship
Truncate
Unintelligible
Zymurgy

Inmates mentioned using the dictionary to improve their own writing and their understanding of common conversation and books. One mentioned he was checking to see if a word played in Scrabble was real.