And we’re back: another year of fundraising with the goal of sponsoring at least one local elementary school’s Scholastic Book Fair! Thanks to the incredible generosity of you, our many donors, the last time around was a total success, and we fully met our target, paying for every student to receive two books of their choosing at Weller Elementary’s spring book fair. It was also one continuous learning experience, and there are certainly ways to improve this initiative moving forward while also expanding the operation.
We have officially opened our next campaign, so if you are interested in donating again, here's the new link:
https://donorbox.org/books-to-keep-year-two
We will likely be archiving the previous campaign, so be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter for updates:
https://www.facebook.com/Books2KeepSGF/
https://twitter.com/Books2KeepSGF
First things first, though: We’ve changed the name to Books 2 Keep! Thanks to some internal and external feedback, we decided to go with a simpler, more straightforward name, one that gets much closer to the heart of what we’re trying to do with this project. Rest assured, however, that nothing has changed about our mission to foster inclusion and access by helping young people begin or build their home libraries.
We’re also happy to announce that the fundraising itself is already off and running, with some donations having recently rolled in and more on their way. So, welcome to the next chapter of Books 2 Keep.
More to come!
Weller Elementary’s Scholastic Book Fair took place last week, and all signs point to it having been a resounding success! Our fundraiser fully accomplished its goal of putting books in the hands of every participating student. The school was so welcoming of this endeavor, too, making it relatively easy to pull off.
As for the kids involved, Weller’s librarian, Joshua Rowlett, reported: “THE STUDENTS HAVE HAD SO MUCH FUN PICKING OUT BOOKS!!! If I could share with you all the ‘thank you’ and ‘this is awesome’ and ‘I’ve never gotten anything at book fair’ comments, it would melt your heart.”
Weller’s principal, Rebecca Donaldson, also passed along a couple of items: She sent over a photo (see attachment) of a student getting books at the book fair for the very first time, and she shared a story of a mother who is new to the Weller district, who is single and escaping domestic abuse, who said, “I would not have had the money to let my kids buy books. They have books because of the donation.”
So, we’re very pleased with what this initiative was able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time, and it wouldn’t have happened without the tremendous generosity of so many people. Therefore, we’d like to once again thank our friends, family, colleagues, and the Missouri State University English Department as well as the Commercial Street businesses for their substantial donations and support. I also want to acknowledge the important work that Sandy Crombie did behind the scenes as part of her Service Learning responsibilities.
We learned so much about this project over the past year, and we’ll be applying those lessons to next year’s endeavor, whatever form that ends up taking. We wish everyone the best, and we’ll be back soon!
In the meantime, we want to thank Bob and Phyllis Gleghorn for their very generous donation that put us over the top. We'd also like to thank the Historic C-Street community for helping us spread the word about this project, and special thanks to Reed's Plumbing, HVAC & Excavating and Lightbox for their recent donations.
More to come!
There's just a little more than a month to go until our Books to the Rescue campaign gets to sponsor Weller Elementary's spring book fair, and we're thrilled to announce that Scholastic has agreed to implement a buy-one-get-one-free plan, ensuring the funds raised will go twice as far! We have a ways to go, but we like where we're at!
A quick update: Over the holiday break, our book-fair fundraiser reached the 2/3 mark of its primary financial goal, which is so, so encouraging! Because we're targeting mid-to-late April, we're quite hopeful we can get this initiative across the finish line (and beyond, as there's so much more we'd like to do).
Also, I wanted to let everyone know there is a Books to the Rescue Facebook page, where we post even more updates and relevant information. Please consider following!
(1) Books to the Rescue | Facebook
Books for Keeps