Community Service

Essense Boston Bookclub (EBB)is using our love of books to try and do our part to improve the literacy rate in our community. One of the ways we decided to tackle this epidemic was by tackling the low literacy rate within our penal system. Our hope is by increasing literacy, one person at a time, will decrease recidivism. EBB partnered with Prison Book Program in Quincy, Ma and through community donations, were able to successfully supply them with over 125 new dictionaries.

EBB has also partnered with local community vendors to sponsor fund raising efforts to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as the families devastated by the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.

We’ve also done a Book Drive along with the folks from Big Hearted Books. Thanks to their generous donation, we were able to dispense over 800 books to families in need, as well as after school programs.

One of our more recent ventures was the renovation of a family visitation room at the local Department of Children and Families office. This project was especially dear to us as all our members either work in the Human Services or medical field. We not only had to organize, but had to be hands-on to get the work done: It was a great project. The room is now fully furnished and provides a nurturing

environment for parents to visit their little ones. We are currently working on remodeling the Play Room of the same office as we’ve seen how much the families, especially the children, seem to appreciate what we’ve done.