Nonprofit providing books to inmates across WA brings a haul to Whatcom County
Bryson Fico arrived in Bellingham on Friday afternoon with 762 books in his car.
One by one, he and two correctional officers brought the 16 boxes of paperbacks to their new home: the Whatcom County Jail Work Center.
The Whatcom County Jail is the 13th correctional facility to receive a large book donation since Fico created Pages of Redemption in September 2023. His first donation, made to the Kittitas County Jail, consisted of 88 books he collected from garage sales, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
He began to expand from there, amassing donations from local universities, community members and Friends of the Library groups. He’s now donated 6,465 books to correctional facilities across the state.
Fico said he wants to donate to jails that he hasn’t helped before, and decided on Whatcom County once the North Cascades Highway reopened. The books he brought from his home of Okanogan County in north central Washington came from community donations and the Friends of the Wenatchee Public Library.
Once Fico receives the donations, he looks through every book to make sure it’s able to go to a correctional facility. Donated books must be paperback and have to be checked for staples and bookmarks. Books on certain topics also aren’t allowed. He then organizes the books by genre and reading level.
Any books Fico receives that aren’t fit for donation are given to the Friends of the Library.
Fico said one of the main reasons he donates books to jails is to increase literacy levels and reduce recidivism. Seventy percent of incarcerated adults can’t read at a fourth-grade reading level, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. It’s a data point that’s stuck in Fico’s mind since he decided to found Pages of Redemption.
In addition to improving literacy, Fico hopes that nonfiction books he donates will help people in custody to learn new skills that they can apply once they’re released. Whether that’s learning another language or the fundamentals of running a business, Fico said this knowledge can help people avoid returning to jail in the future.
“Providing books to people who are incarcerated allows them to escape into a different behavioral mindset and into a reality outside of their own confinement,” Fico said. “Jail shouldn’t be fun, but it should also be rehabilitative for people.”
How does the jail library work?
Books at the work center, which houses up to 150 people, are kept in a designated area in the back of the facility. A cart loaded with books is brought around the housing units for incarcerated individuals to choose from and borrow, with a limit of five loans at a time.
The main jail has its own separate library — and its own rules when it comes to book lending.
Meagan Wheeler, a public service assistant in the Whatcom County Library System’s Mobile Services and Outreach Department, operates the library at the main jail. Its roughly 3,000 books are kept inside a small closet that only Wheeler can access.
Many of the books at the jail come from library donations. Wheeler also has a budget to use to purchase books for the jail library, which helps her to obtain newer and specifically requested books that may not be donated from the regular library. She also set up a wishlist of books to be bought for the jail at Village Books in Fairhaven.
Wheeler said she starts her day at the jail by picking up requests and collecting the stack of newspapers and magazines donated by local libraries. She then fills the requests and, if she has time, brings a book cart around for people to look at through the window.
“Eight hours a week is not really enough time to provide the type of service that I like to provide, but I do what I can and try to get reading material, at least something in everybody’s hands,” Wheeler said.
She said people incarcerated at the jail call the books a “lifeline,” and are always excited when she comes around with the cart.
“People that haven’t really been readers their whole lives will start reading while they are incarcerated and find pathways forward in their education because of that,” Wheeler said.
She explained that many incarcerated people are in custody because they haven’t had access to resources or education that they needed, and providing them with books can help remedy that. It also keeps people engaged, which can help prevent mental health issues or other behavioral problems.
Fico said he also gets positive feedback from people incarcerated at the jails he’s donated to, as well as those in the legal system who work with them. He plans to continue to donate to more correctional facilities statewide, with a goal of surpassing 7,000 books and focusing on regions he hasn’t brought books to yet.
“I wholeheartedly, passionately believe that access to reading materials is a fundamental human right,” Fico said.
This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 5:25 AM.