Volunteers asks students for Just Mercy donations

Susan Simone, a volunteer at the Orange Correctional Center, has led literacy workshops for six years that have helped turn the lives of the residents around.

Simone is trying to obtain copies of Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy”, UNC’s 2015 summer reading selection, which is the focus of many of her workshops.

With money as an issue, Simone said she had to photocopy the first chapter of the book for her students to read. She said she contacted UNC Student Stores for donations, but they don’t buy anything back other than textbooks.

“‘Just Mercy’ seemed like a good book for them to read because it’s about a person that’s dealing with a particularly stubborn part of the legal system with the death penalty,” she said.

Simone said she meets with a group of inmates weekly to discuss things ranging from literary classics to social issues.

“I try to introduce them to things that are going on that everybody in the world knows about, but that they maybe have not had any experience with,” Simone said.

She works under the sponsorship of Orange Literacy, a program focused on providing education for adults throughout the county.

Matt Dailey, Orange Literacy’s program coordinator for adult education, works with Simone to help increase access to educational tools for the residents.

“With all our adult literacy programs, we help Orange County adults access the information and technology they need to reach their own goals,” Dailey said.

She said she has helped her students feel like they will be part of the world again when they finish their sentences.

Former inmate Lapril Brown said Simone’s literacy and poetry workshops prepared him to come out to an ever-changing world.

“With her and her program, it’s all about asking questions and getting into the world,” Brown said. “She really brought people in from outside which really helped with the issues of us coming out.”

Simone and Dailey both said they felt reading “Just Mercy” would help the students bridge the gap between themselves and society when they are released.

“One of the hardest things to maintain when you’re in prison is your sense of yourself,” Simone said.

“Even though you have a lot of things to feel bad about, that are unforgiveable in a sense, you can’t live your life without finding some way to move on from that.”

After working with the students and seeing their reactions to such a short passage of the book, Simone set out to obtain copies for her students.

She is accepting donations in Greenlaw Hall 410 and hopes to get enough copies to share with the inmates.

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