Every Tuesday and every other Saturday since his release, Bixon has shown up to volunteer at the cramped West Philadelphia headquarters of Books Through Bars, an organization that sends requested books to inmates and donates material to underfunded prison libraries.
"I knew I wanted to come back and help," he said. "The guys need this type of connection to the outside."
Tim Dunn has helped organize the prison books program since it began as an offshoot of a specialty-book-publishing firm getting 15 requests a month. Books Through Bars now receives about 1,500 requests a month.
"Books made such a difference in our own lives," Dunn said. "We hope to make a difference in these prisoners' lives."
But like most organizations, Books Through Bars has faced increased costs, especially in shipping, and developed a three-month backlog of requests.
In March, Books Through Bars treasurer Lindsay Liprando had to limit what was a national program to prisons in the Mid-Atlantic region.
"It's like fighting the tide," she said. "We had to choose out of necessity to only serve states in our area."
Despite the recent budget constraints, Dunn said, the organization ships about 500 packages every month, each containing three to five books. Most books are donated by individuals, and the organization is run by unpaid volunteers.
Dunn said volunteers must be aware of the restrictions on what can and cannot be sent to the inmates.
Most prisons nationwide do not accept hardcover books for fear they could be used as bludgeons, Dunn said. Others specify no books about certain subjects, such as the occult, and some have banned magazines.
Among the most requested books are dictionaries, GED guidebooks, and books on African American and Hispanic studies. These types of books illustrate the demographics of the inmate population, as well as their aspirations for life outside the prison walls, Dunn said.
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the Quran, and GED books are gold for the prisons," Dunn said.
When Books Through Bars does not have a requested book among the rows of ceiling-high shelves in its basement and back room, Dunn said, the program always sends something anyway.
"We try to match their requests as closely as possible," Dunn said. "There's such meager opportunities for education in prison, this could be their only chance."
Recently, however, the stockpile of hardcover books and larger reference books that cannot be sent to individual inmates have been shipped to expanding prison libraries, Dunn said.
"The prison libraries are hit-and-miss. They may have some fiction, maybe a legal reference, but nothing up to date," he said. "We feel good about sending things to libraries, because more people will be able to use" them.
After volunteering for the first time in July, Christine Atwood went around her neighborhood collecting used dictionaries.
"I always figured prisons had libraries, but there's hardly anything," she said. "How discouraging not to have any way to read, to learn."
Bixon, like the dozen other volunteers who trickled in on an recent Saturday afternoon, picks up a letter from the pile. He searches the shelves for a worn copy of Machiavelli's The Prince, brings it back with a few other books, and carefully packages them in self-sealing, corrugated cardboard wrap. Then he uses several feet of masking tape to ensure the package stays sealed.
"Can't be too careful," he says.
Before taping the letter to the outside of the package, he smiles and reads it aloud:
"It puts a smile on my face to hear someone showing us behind the wall some love."
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