School Without a Library

Hi S.,

Have you heard of reading night? They do this at almost evrery school, they set one evening for everybody to go to school, they collect used books for that day, every child is ask to bring at least one book (they all love to bring more, moms need to get rid of books!) so on reading night, everybody gets to pick a couple of books to take home and teachers read a story and do a craft in each class, they all have fun and the school end up with hundreds of books!
They usually donated but you can do one for your school.
Hope it helps,
Mariana Abadie
www.MykidsFirst.com
www.MaiaCreations.ecrater.com

I have always found people are generous when it comes to nuturing reading. Putting a call out for used books online can easily be done and also supported by legitimate sites such as your state's local writer's guild.

Also I worked in publishing and often times publishers get requests for book donations. If you write children's publishers with a requested for donated books you will probably get a good response. Just make a generic letter and then use Word's mail merge to input the individual addresses and publisher names.

If you think either of these ideas sound benificial I can try to do some reserach to get you more information.

Good luck and I would be happy to donate some books to you if you send an address. But books are just the begining because you will still need space, shelving and a library staff.

E. B

Have you tried seeking help from other schools? I subbed at a school once who had a spring festival. For the kids at this school to ride on the "best" ride (it was a moonwalk water slide) they had to donate at least one book. The books were then given to a less fortunate school. People were bringing in boxes of books! Some of them were used were but they were in great shape. I would also check with the local public library. Ours has a book sale once or twice a year. Maybe they could work something in with people shopping there to buy a book for the school with every purhcase or donate any leftover books that would be appropriate for students. Just a few thoughts I had after reading your note. Hope they help! Good luck! You could also try sending a note to Oprah. I'm not joking here either. Especially with her Big Give show, this might be just the thing she's looking for.

you should check with the manager at the Foozles bookstore in the great mall, in olathe. every month i think they are allowed so much money to donate books, so it might be worthwhile to check there.

I have several different ideas about how you can get books for you students.

Have you heard of the freecycle movement. If you go to freecycle.org it will take you to the list of many in our area. KC Freecycle is the biggest and best one that there is. I am sure that if you posted your story, you would get several responses. I would clearly post what cities you would be willing to travel to to pick up books.

Also, now that Garage sale season is in full swing, take advantage there. If you tell the people your situation, they may likely throw them in for free or greatly reduce the costs.

I also believe that the Lansing city public library was started with donations from another libraries book sale. I know that Olathe is having their Spring book sale for the public soon. You may be able to contact them and see if they would donate the books that did not sell to your school.

There is also the Scholastic book warehouse sale that offers books cheaply. Does Scholastic know of your situation? It seems that they would be willing to donate some books.

Also, I would contact local business for cash donation to get a library started.

Have you thought about writing a grant? I would think that a quick internet search would lead you to several sites of people trying to promote literacy.

Hope this helps!