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Pictured from left to right, are: Jail Officer Sharon Kish,
Sue Montania, Barbara Aungst, Chief Deputy Dave Lain,
and Warden John J. Widup.
The Sheriff’s Dept. has
been chosen to receive a donation of $5,000 for establishing a library for
inmates in the Porter County Jail. The award is from the Porter County chapter
of Delta Kappa Gamma, an international honor society of women educators. The
group received a grant from the Educational Foundation, a branch of the
society.
Several Delta Kappa
Gamma members have been instrumental in attempting to establish the jail library
and writing the grant. Barbara Aungst, a Valparaiso resident who is a teacher
with Portage Adult Education, works with inmates in the G.E.D. program at the
jail. Sue Montania, another Valparaiso resident, is a retired media specialist
from the Duneland Schools. Both women recognized the need for the establishment
of a library to provide inmates with books for recreational reading, self help,
learning the English language, and other areas. In the past the few reading
materials available were circulated from a small reading cart containing several
dozen books with limited access by the inmates. Inmates had to purchase
religious materials or newspapers themselves. These women, assisted by Jail
Officer Sharon Kish, are purchasing books and materials to build the library to
make literature available to all inmates. Materials in Spanish will also be
added due to the number of Spanish-speaking inmates at the jail. There will
also be titles to accommodate other ethnicities. A portion of a room has been
set aside for bookshelves and a donated card catalog. Part of the grant monies
will be used for a software cataloging system to facilitate circulation and for
other materials to maintain the library. Members of the local Delta Kappa Gamma
chapter will collect donated paperbacks and provide volunteer services.
The goals of the project
are to improve the reading opportunities for inmates in order to provide them
with an increased sense of purpose to avoid recidivism, to advance reading
levels of inmates, and to encourage small group discussions of various books.
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