When residents of the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase no longer have use for a book, they don't just toss it away, or try to re-sell it on the Internet.

Instead, they donate used books to the Maryland Prison System, so that inmates may have access to a well-stocked library.

"We have developed a really nice relationship with the [head librarian] for the Maryland State Correctional Library system, Ruth Mewborn. Our community has donated several boxes of books for use in these libraries," Susan Bick, lifestyle director of the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase, wrote in an email to Patch.

Bick and others at the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase—an independent and assisted living apartment complex at 8100 Connecticut Ave., Chevy Chase, MD—learned of the prison library's need of books through an article in The Washington Post.

Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase Program Committee Chairman Rae Walton and Bick "both saw the article and had the same idea to donate our surplus books to them," Bick said.

On Friday, April 20, Mewborn and her assistant Dante Lewis visited the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase to meet its library committee members and to receive another large donation of books—the residence's second donation to the correctional library system.

About 25 boxes of books were donated on April 20, a little more than the amount donated on the initial donation day.

Now that the second donation of 25 books has left the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase, the question is: Will there be any books left—to read and donate?

Bick is sure of it. "I see this as a lasting relationship."

Editor's note: This post has been updated. The original version referred to the Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase as the Classic Residence. The apartment complex changed its name from Classic Residence to Five Star Premier Residences of Chevy Chase in 2011.