Nonprofit Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Morgantown Nonprofit Mails Books To People Incarcerated Across Appalachia

Founded in 2004, the Appalachian Prison Book Project has mailed more than 70,000 books to people incarcerated in Appalachian prisons, with the goal of expanding access to books and educational resources.

Each week, volunteers comb through a stack of more than 200 letters on the second floor of the Aull Center, a historic twentieth-century home in Monongalia County now owned by the Morgantown Public Library.

Sent by people incarcerated across Appalachia, most of these letters contain the same request: a new book to read.

Some prisons in the United States have their own libraries, but often with narrow inventories and limited hours of operation. In turn, more than 50 organizations across the United States and Canada mail incarcerated people books missing from their library shelves.

In West Virginia, one nonprofit — the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) — has distributed books throughout the region since 2004. In that twenty year span, APBP has mailed more than 70,000 books, according to Communications Coordinator Lydia Welker.

People in Appalachian prisons can submit written letters to APBP, requesting books they would like to receive through the mail, Welker said. APBP then examines each prison’s policies and connects readers with the book they requested, or one from a similar genre or subject area.

Volunteers join the project from all different backgrounds. Some are advocates for prison reform. Others, like Morgantown High School student Lilly Staples, do it from a love of books and desire to expand reading access.

Danielle Stoneberg prepares to send a book from the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office to an Appalachian prison.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

“It’s a really nice space for volunteer hours,” Staples said while volunteering at the Aull Center in April. “I’ve always loved to read, and so helping, giving other people that chance in their position really means something to me.”

Still, this work can be tricky. Books with divisive or controversial content — like violence and nudity — tend to be rejected outright by facility staff.

Other rules are subjective, changing from facility to facility. Welker said one prison even refused to take in a copy of The Lord of the Rings because it had illustrations of a fictional map.

“These rules are not set in stone,” Welker said. “It’s up to the discretion of whoever’s working in the mailroom or whatever prison system it is to decide if a book gets inside.”

Occasionally, books APBP sends are rejected by prison staff. APBP keeps a running list of which books are accepted at which facility to ensure that resources are not wasted.

Welker said APBP’s most common request is a dictionary. Other widely sought-after texts include textbooks, as well as books that contain medical or legal information.

Reference books are some of the most requested items from the Appalachian Prison Book Project.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

For the staff at APBP, this only further exemplifies the gaps in educational resources available to people who are incarcerated.

“It goes to show how much people need access to the outside world,” she said. “Very literally, information about how this world works.”

Mass incarceration in the United States often cuts people off from books and educational resources, which makes the work of APBP and similar prison book projects important, Welker said.

In 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 355 of every 100,000 U.S. residents were incarcerated — one of the highest rates globally.

Additionally, the national incarceration rate of Black residents was nearly five times the incarceration rate of white residents in 2022. Hispanic residents were also incarcerated at nearly double the rate of white residents nationally.

Without groups like APBP, thousands of residents — and a disproportionate number of Black residents — would lack access to reading resources.

For many staff members and volunteers, working with APBP has opened their eyes to realities like these, and the daily challenges that incarcerated people face across the United States.

Before joining APBP, mass incarceration in the United States “was never really something that seemed really direct to me,” said Danielle Stoneberg,

“It was never really something that seemed really direct to me, and kind of in my face,” Danielle Stoneberg, prison outreach coordinator, said.

Stacks of books sit on the shelves of the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office, ready to ship to people who are incarcerated.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting.*

“As I started to have these experiences of going inside and reading letters, and also just having conversations with people, … I started to realize that I have a lot more friends than I thought, who had loved ones who have been impacted by the system,” she said.

Stoneberg said prison book projects like APBP allow volunteers to acknowledge the humanity of people who are incarcerated and work to improve their lived experiences.

“Many of us who work here with APBP, we believe that individuals shouldn’t be judged for the mistake that they made. We wouldn’t want to be judged for the worst thing that we ever did,” she said. “That’s why I sit on the phone for 20, 30 minutes on hold with a prison just to get hung up on, or not get the answer that I want.”

Stoneberg said this work is an important step toward making a difference in the U.S. prison system. Now, she is encouraging others to get involved in the project, too.

“What I would tell people is go ahead and have these experiences,” she said. “See if that makes you believe in the humanity of people who are incarcerated.”

For more information on the Appalachian Prison Book Project, visit the project’s website.

Chris Schulz contributed reporting to this story.

Advocates Seek Bigger Slice Of State Budget To Address Domestic Violence

Domestic violence prevention nonprofits have not received a state budget increase since 2009. Advocates hope a special session of the West Virginia Legislature could change that.

Tucked away on a side street of downtown Martinsburg, the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center (EPEC) is a domestic violence prevention nonprofit serving Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.

EPEC was founded in 1977 and expanded with time. Ten years ago, Executive Director Katie Spriggs said the EPEC served 250 people annually. Now, it serves more than 1,400 people each year.

Visits to EPEC may be on the rise, but Spriggs said funding has not increased sufficiently to meet them.

Looking at EPEC’s first-floor office it immediately becomes clear. Each day, staff members squeeze into corners of the room with laptops and cell phones in hand.

“We have probably on an average day 12 people that work out of this office, so it’s not large enough,” Spriggs said.

According to Spriggs, moving out of EPEC’s apartment-turned-office into a larger space would bring benefits. But a potential move and the expansion of current EPEC services are constrained by the same factor: the budget.

“We’re kind of stuck,” she said. “We haven’t seen an increase in so long that it’s really difficult to make the budget work every year.”

In West Virginia, domestic violence prevention nonprofits receive funding through a variety of sources, like private donations, federal grants and a line item included annually in the state budget.

But the state has not boosted that line item since May 2009, even as the cost of living has risen.

In recent years, Gov. Jim Justice has pursued a flat budget, which means freezing state spending so it stays the same each year. While surplus funds get redistributed, they do not supplement every budget item.

At the same time, Spriggs said that federal support for nonprofits through the Victims of Crime Act has become jeopardized by a recent reallocation of funds.

Continuing to provide resources to survivors of domestic violence requires reliable funding on the state level, she said.

Katie Spriggs, executive director of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center, is in the process of digitizing decades of the center’s paper records.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Sara Belvins O’Toole, director of development at Huntington’s Branches Domestic Violence Shelter, said part of the need for additional funding stems from changing conversations around domestic violence prevention.

In the early days, Belvins O’Toole said advocates were focused primarily on removing individuals from crisis situations.

They now understand helping people stay away from abusive relationships requires more holistic assistance, she said.

“People who are just plopped out of a situation and put into another environment don’t have the resources and the skills and the support that they need to actually stay away from a person that was violent in their life,” Belvins O’Toole said. “Especially if that person was in control of the finances.”

Approaching domestic violence on a holistic level means considering other factors that put survivors at risk, like housing insecurity and child care needs.

“We have to do a little bit of that other work like housing advocacy, like legal advocacy — all of those things that are providing support,” Belvins O’Toole said. “It’s not about just getting somebody out of crisis anymore. It’s about supporting them into a life free from violence.”

But this is easier said than done. Joyce Yedlsoky, team coordinator at the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WVCADV), said that the state’s flat budget has also affected separate nonprofits that address these needs directly.

In turn, she said domestic violence prevention advocates must wear multiple hats, spreading their time and funding thinner.

The budget “being able to account for other aspects that survivors need” is important as well, she said.

Through the WVCADV, Yedlosky works with the 14 licensed domestic violence prevention nonprofits located across West Virginia. In February, she helped arrange a visit to the State Capitol featuring representatives from each of these organizations.

The advocates lined the Capitol’s lower rotunda with tables, passing out stickers and informational flyers to visitors and lawmakers alike.

Yedlosky also took the time to speak with lawmakers about the nonprofits’ current financial needs, and said they were generally supportive of securing new funds.

But, since then, Yedlosky said lines of communication between lawmakers and the nonprofits have all but closed.

“Since the session ended, we haven’t heard from lawmakers specifically around our funding,” she said.

Staff members Katie Brougham, Serena Hemple and Foxfire Formoso (from left) stand in the entryway of the Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

By the time this year’s regular session of the West Virginia Legislature ended, no budget line increases for domestic violence nonprofits had been passed. New funding for services like child care were also left out entirely.

Still, this year’s budget is not completely settled. Gov. Jim Justice has expressed disapproval of some funding omissions from this year’s budget, and in March announced plans to call a special legislative session to reconsider the budget.

Justice said he plans to hold the session by May 14, the state’s primary election. Members of the Legislature’s leadership have indicated they would prefer for the session to coincide with interim meetings beginning May 19.

In a dream scenario, Yedlosky said she would like to see a $500,000 cost-of-living increase to the state’s funding for domestic violence nonprofits, which currently sits at $2.5 million split annually between all 14 licensed organizations.

But Yedlosky said she’s not holding her breath for what the special session will bring.

“To be honest, I don’t think that that’s on the table for the special session,” she said. “It would be really nice if it was.”

Instead, Yedlosky said she hopes that lawmakers will reverse course and provide new funding to other services like child care.

“I do believe if they reinstate back some of the huge cuts that they made, that’s also going to help survivors,” she said. “That’s my hope.”

Back in the Eastern Panhandle, Spriggs echoed Yedlosky’s calls for a cost-of-living budget increase. She described an increase like this as a critical way to reduce the risks that survivors of domestic violence face across the state.

“A line item increase on the state budget would not only keep the lights on and give us a foundation to grow on,” she said. “It would also prevent violence. A lot of violence.”

For more information on domestic violence prevention resources in West Virginia, visit the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s website.

Domestic Violence Nonprofits Seek New Funds Before Session Ends

Representatives from 14 groups fighting to curb domestic violence in West Virginia gathered at the State Capitol Tuesday morning to request new funding and spread awareness about domestic violence.

As this year’s window for proposing new legislation draws to a close, nonprofits that support victims of domestic violence are calling for more state funding.

Fourteen groups working to curb domestic violence gathered in the State Capitol on a busy Tuesday morning.

The West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WVCADV) helps connect victims of domestic violence with the 14 nonprofit groups that tabled at the Capitol, which together serve all 55 counties in West Virginia.

With the end of this year’s legislative session in sight, Joyce Yedlosky, team coordinator with the coalition, said the groups are still in dire need of state funding.

“We’re all private nonprofit organizations who haven’t had a raise in the state budget for over 10 years,” she said. “We’re asking for a line item increase in the budget to be able just to keep up with the cost of living.”

Dwindling funds mark a particular issue for rural communities, according to Amaya Williams, outreach and volunteer coordinator with the Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center.

The group, based in north central West Virginia, often works with victims who can’t reach a resource center due to a lack of public transit.

Many victims “don’t have access to transportation – that’s our biggest barrier,” she said. “It’s a big barrier in seeking services, just because people, if they can’t get to us, then they’re kind of isolated.”

Victims of domestic violence also face challenges in the housing, legal and medical sectors.

These challenges can be particularly acute for Black West Virginians, according to Sarina Tuell, domestic violence outreach specialist with Charleston’s YWCA Resolve Family Abuse Program.

“With [the] systemic oppression and racism that our country alone has a huge history of, they may not trust the legal system,” she said. “They’re not going to go to the court system because there’s already that distrust there, underlying the situation.”

A 2009 study found that Black and Hispanic women are two to three times more likely to be victims of police-reported domestic violence than white women in the United States.

Tuell said racial disparities in domestic violence are something that the nonprofits “really need to hit home on,” and something that lawmakers should make a concerted effort to address.

The groups hoped their presence at the Capitol helped remind legislators of the importance of domestic violence policy. Yedlosky said lawmakers have been receptive to her group’s requests for more funding, but that time is quickly running out this year.

“They are considering our request,” she said. “But, so far, we’re starting to get a little antsy because we haven’t seen any movement.”

Crossover Day, the deadline for a bill to be passed out of its chamber of origin, is Feb. 28 this year — just one day away.

“We hope that we’ll see something as they start to finalize the budget,” Yedlosky said.

Fellowship Program Seeks To Retain, Develop State’s Young Workforce

Nonprofit group Generation West Virginia is organizing a fellowship program to help retain and advance the careers of young people in the state.

The nine-month fellowship program aims to help workers in their 20s and 30s interested in in-state careers grow their leadership and development skills alongside networking opportunities with fellow young professionals and business leaders.

“A lot of small businesses in West Virginia don’t have the capacity to provide really great, robust professional development opportunities for their teams,” Executive Director Alex Weld said. “And so this program is really built in response to that – how can we support young people in their growth and their efforts to stay here while also supporting companies who have young talent that they want to keep, and they want to grow into new roles that they otherwise might not be able to support on their own?”

Some of the skills involved include navigating career changes, how to develop and manage interpersonal relationships with coworkers and managers and using individual communication styles as support. Activities like hiking and whitewater rafting are also scheduled to increase bonds with fellow program-goers and to help gain an appreciation of the state.

Weld said many young workers leave to advance their careers elsewhere in part because of the lack of professional development opportunities in the state.

“We’re really trying to change that narrative, by providing young people with an opportunity to see other young people and to be a part of something with other young people,” Weld said. “It’s so they understand that you can grow and be successful here, you’re not alone in wanting to do that.”

West Virginia has a labor force participation of nearly 55 percent as of last December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The program is set to have five in-person sessions each organized in the New River Gorge area, Matewan, Williamson, Harpers Ferry, Morgantown and Charleston alongside four virtual sessions over the course of nine months.

Applications are available online until Feb. 28 with information on how to apply available on the nonprofit’s website.

Salvation Army Reports Increased Need For Food In Central W.Va. As Holiday Donations Lag

The nonprofit organization’s annual holiday fundraiser program provides food, toys and more for families.

The sound of a ringing bell to call for donations is familiar during the holidays. The Salvation Army’s Red Kettle Campaign is underway, and, in West Virginia, donations are down while the need for food is increasing. The nonprofit organization’s annual holiday fundraiser program provides food, toys and more for families.

Amelia Knisely spoke with Maj. Joseph May, the area commander for the Salvation Army of Central West Virginia, which serves Boone, Clay, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, Putnam and Roane counties.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

KNISELY: Thanks for speaking with me today. Your Red Kettle Campaign is underway, and what do the funds go to in your program in the seven counties that you support?

MAY: Primarily, we’re raising funds to help support and fund our Christmas program, our Angel Tree program to provide food and toys and clothing to children across the seven counties that we have. That program is similar in the other counties across West Virginia in their different locations as well. Any money we raise above and beyond the expenses of Christmas, we put into the general budget to support the programs throughout the year, which includes rent and utility payments, food boxes, our Boys and Girls Club Program, camp programs, just a whole wide range of things the Salvation Army does throughout the 12 months of the year. It is our most prolific fundraising effort of the year.

KNISELY: With inflation being what it is and that we’re still in a pandemic, have you seen your needs increase in the counties that you serve?

MAY: Yes, we have seen some increase due to Covid over the last three years. There’s been a lot of assistance given through government programs during that time, but those programs are starting to close, and we have seen an increase in the requests for food, partially, in the last few months. Those who have had trouble making ends meet are finding it even harder now. With the cost of food, food has been one of the things we’ve seen an increase in requests for.

KNISELY: In 2020, the national commander of the Salvation Army said red kettle donations were expected to drop 50 percent, and I’ve seen headlines just in the last few days that there are continued concerns about donations being down all across the country right now because of inflation and because people are still not out as much shopping in person. How is the campaign going in West Virginia and are you experiencing any of that drop in donations?

MAY: We see a drop in donations, but I wouldn’t say it’s 50 percent in our area. I haven’t done a study to see the percentage amount. But, there has been a drop in the financial support in the last year or so. After Covid, there was a huge increase, and we had a lot of extra support. But now that Covid situation is subsiding, even though we recognize it’s not gone away, but it’s certainly subsided, that level of support has dropped.

Our goal this year is $200,000. Right now, we are at $90,000, so we are not even halfway toward our goal. We are about 3 percent below where we were at this point last year, but we have seen an increase in the last week or so, so that gap is narrowing.

KNISELY: How many bell ringers do you have this year?

MAY: Right now, and we’ve struggled with that, but we’ve had some success in getting some additional ringers in the last week or so. Right now I have about 15 bell ringers. Three or four weeks ago when we started, I had about 10 that I could count on. We have permission from businesses in our area to have 30 – to have 30 kettles open every day. But, we just don’t have the bell ringers to fill those spots.

KNISELY: For people who want to donate, including people who may not be able to donate to red kettle in person, how can they help?

MAY: They can go to www.salvationarmyusa.org. There’s a place on there you can tell where you’re from, and when you get to your local unit, you can make a donation that way. We have a Facebook page: Salvation Army Charleston West Virginia, and there are a number of posts on there that have links that you can donate online. On our Kettle Stands, for people who don’t carry cash, we have a QR code on the back of the sign that they can scan, and that will take them to a website. They can donate that way, they can donate by Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPay and Venmo, if they want. There’s a number of ways that people can give.

KNISELY: That’s great to know, I didn’t know that. So, if I see someone ringing the bell, and I don’t have cash on me, they have a way for me to still donate electronically as I’m standing there. Good to know.

MAY: Yes, on the back of the sign there’s a sticker that has the QR code, and it actually has a disc you can tap if you have that capability with your phone. You can tap that and make a donation.

KNISELY: Is there anything else you want to add for our listeners?

MAY: We appreciate the continued support of people in our community. They are giving at a great level. We appreciate the businesses that are letting us stand outside their stores. They are very generous. We don’t take that for granted. We could just use more bell ringers. We have volunteers, and we have a few more volunteers than we did last year. I think people are feeling more comfortable coming out after Covid. But, we don’t have enough volunteers so we have to hire some bell ringers.

KNISELY: How long do people have to donate to this campaign?

MAY: Our kettles will be out until Christmas Eve.

KNISELY: Thanks so much for speaking with me.

May also reminded people who have selected children from the Angel Tree gift program to please drop-off gifts before the program’s deadline.

Advocates Hope Large Solar Installation On Shepherd Library Inspires More Solar In W.Va.

More than 180 solar panels are now on the roof of Shepherd University’s Scarborough Library. It’s one of the largest solar panel installations in West Virginia.

The panels will generate an estimated 67,000-kilowatt hours of power a year, according to Jeff Groff, an associate professor of physics at Shepherd and the chairman of the Department of Environmental and Physical Sciences.

Groff said that amount of power is equal to about 10 percent of the library’s annual energy consumption. Or enough energy to power six and half average American homes for one year.

Groff said these are just estimates, though, and it will take some time to know the full impact. Monetarily, the library estimates it will save at least $120,000 over the panels’ 20-year lifetime.

The installation was made possible due to a $100,000 grant from a Massachusetts-based company called EBSCO Information Services. All the panels were paid for through the grant, except for one that was donated by a Shepherd alumnus. The installation took about three weeks to complete.

“I thought, why not try to apply for this? It seemed like there was nothing to lose,” Rachel Hally said. Getting the solar panels was Hally’s idea.

Hally is the coordinator of collections at the Scarborough Library. She learned about the grant after receiving an email from the EBSCO company. This particular grant is only for libraries that want to install solar.

“This state has such a strong culture of coal and other extractive sources of energy, so to bring this forward and to get people excited and interested in solar, it’s a wonderful way for us to promote renewable energy within our community,” Hally said.

Hally and Groff worked together to write and apply for the grant. Groff said the installation won’t just save the library money, but it also creates a tool he can use in his classroom.

“One of the concepts I like to get across to students is just the idea about how much energy we actually consume; the vast quantities of energy we consume. So, when you have some energy production that’s local, and you can monitor it, it really drives home the point about how much energy that we are consuming,” Groff said.

Dan Conant is the founder and CEO of Solar Holler.

Solar In West Virginia

The solar panels on Shepherd’s library were installed by a West Virginia company called Solar Holler.

Founded in 2013, this company of 40 employees is one of the first solar installation companies in the state. It’s headquartered in Shepherdstown but has a larger office in Huntington.

Dan Conant founded the company to give people more options when it comes to their electricity.

“People have never had a choice in West Virginia. They’ve always been locked into one single utility that they had no say over. They have no say over what the rates are, or what they pay, and all of the sudden here along comes solar, which is giving them an option to lock in their utility bills to protect themselves from rate increases year after year,” Conant said.

For most people, solar doesn’t replace your normal utility bill, just helps to reduce the amount of electricity you pay for from your local electric or natural gas company.

Conant said while homeowners and businesses have access to a federal tax credit for 30 percent of the cost of their solar panels, nonprofits like Shepherd’s library don’t. That’s why the grant was so important.

On the state level, in West Virginia, there are no incentives for homeowners, businesses, or anyone to go solar.

Solar Holler is headquartered in Shepherdstown, W.Va. The company’s slogan is “Mine the Sun.”

But this doesn’t discourage Conant. He said despite the lack of incentives, solar is growing in West Virginia.

“Solar is cheaper. And so, as a result, I think the industry is going to continue to grow for the foreseeable future, as more and more folks understand that,” Conant said.

Conant said so far in 2019, his company has worked with 200 families in West Virginia to install solar. Since Solar Holler was founded six years ago, he said the number of their projects in West Virginia has increased every year, and Conant said many of their installations are in the southern part of the state.

According to the nonprofit Solar Foundation, in 2018, solar installation was up 17 percent in West Virginia. But nationwide, the state is ranked 49th in installed solar capacity.

Hally said she hopes their solar installation demonstrates that solar is possible in West Virginia.

“We’re probably not going to stay the largest nonprofit installation for long, and I think that’s a good thing,” she said. “So, I hope that it kind of has a snowball effect where people hear that we were able to do this, learn about how we did it, and then hopefully try to figure out their own path to get more installations up.”

Hally hopes more homeowners and businesses recognize the cost saving opportunities offered through solar, and she encourages folks to seek out their options if they want to install their own panels.