“We gotta stop!” said Lisa Cagney, teacher/counselor at McKean
County Prison, laughingly, as she stood in a room at the prison
Monday surrounded by thousands of donated books.

Smiling, Cagney said, “We have enough!”

Cagney and Warden Tim Woodruff have been pleasantly overwhelmed
by the huge response from the public to a request at the end of
August for books to be donated to inmates at the prison.

And the program has worked out to be a benefit to the jail in so
many ways, Cagney said.

“We’ve got the inmates building the shelves to put the books
on,” Woodruff said, agreeing.

“And the female inmates painted the shelves,” Cagney said.

Standing at the door of what had been an open and rather
spacious library, Woodruff pointed to the rows and rows of huge
boxes stacked on top of each other, covering every available
surface – every box filled with books. How-To manuals on carpentry
and plumbing, mysteries, westerns, encyclopedias, religious
literature – virtually every kind of book imaginable has been
donated to the jail.

“The (Otto-) Eldred School District came last week with 18 big
boxes,” Woodruff said, adding the books are all educational
materials.

“And we’re getting some magazines … woodworking and that type of
thing,” he said. And those educational tools are being used
already, as some inmates are building a porch on the old county
nursing home that currently houses the McKean County Cooperative
Extension and Planning Commission, to name a few.

Cagney explained inmates are helping her sort and categorize the
books that have been donated, and the books will be arranged by the
author’s last name since that is the most common way someone
requests a book.

The books in use at any given time will be on a rotating basis
because such a huge number of books were received, Cagney said.

“After we catalog things, we’re going to have a check-out
system,” she said, adding the Bradford Area Public Library had
donated cards and envelopes for creating a check-out system “to
sign it out like a real library.”

“They’ve also offered us a whole wall of educational material,”
she said, but added they have yet to pick up the materials because
of a lack of space at this time.

While the books are helping the inmates pass free time
constructively and learn categorization and research techniques,
the reading materials are just a starting point for a whole lot
more.

“These books are a launching off for everything,” Cagney said
excitedly, explaining programs running at the prison such as the
GED program, an anger management program, adult basic education
classes and parenting programs.

“Obviously, we appreciate the outpouring of generosity from the
public,” Woodruff said. “But the inmates see that, too. They don’t
feel as isolated. They feel the public cares.”

He explained the parenting classes offered at the prison have
exploded in size, starting with two or three participants and now
having two classes with eight participants in each.

“If the parenting classes are any indication, these are really
going to work,” Woodruff said of the educational programs. With a
smile and a wink, Woodruff said, “We won’t need any books for
awhile.”

The donation of books to the prison was suggested by a former
inmate, who wrote a letter to The Era asking for books to help pass
his time constructively.