Part of Governor Scott Walker’s new Read to LEAD initiative, a program to help prison inmates and their children was announced Friday in Racine by the Governor and Miss American Laura Kaeppeler.
Called Book Bridge, the program involves inmates recording themselves while reading, which will then be sent to their children. Governor Walker said the program will start at Racine’s Youthful Offender Correctional Center, were about 200 of the inmates are fathers. “Literally every day, at any time of the day, their children can go back to that recording, an hear their father reading to them,” said Walker. “That’s incredibly powerful.”
Kaeppeler, whose father was incarcerated for a white collar crime when she was a teenager, said that connection is very important. The Book Bridge program will start by targeting fathers in state prisons and will eventually be expanded to include women incarcerated in state facilities. The program will be administered by the Departments of Corrections and Children and Family Services.
Janet Hoff, WRJN