Book Drive

Last summer my kids and I donated some books to the Page It Forward 2011 book drive. Up until then, I'd never heard of a book drive and I naively assumed all kids had access to books.

Now my daughters' school is running a week long book drive for the same organization - Bernie's Book Bank. According to the literature they came home with, in a low-income area there are on average 1 book per 300 kids. That would mean 2 books for my daughters' entire school. Among the 3 kids' bookshelves in our house we must have hundreds of books and make trips to the library monthly (on top of the weekly trips my daughters take to the school library). I can't even guess how many books my kids have read at this point, but among the 3 of them, I'd guess it's in the 1000s. The school's goal is to collect 3000 books over the course of the week - an average of 5 books per student. Next weeks weekly project happens to be organizing the kids bookshelves, but I already had my son look at his bookshelf and he found 9 books to donate.

If you have any gently used books that your kids have outgrown please donate them to Bernie's Book Bank or a similar organization (I'm sure there are others around the country). Check out this promotional video from Bernie's for more info on how this works.

As bloggers we all appreciate the written word and I would assume you all share this love with your children. Please help spread the joy of a book with those who can't afford to buy their own or don't have access to a library, supporting book banks like Bernie's or find a book drive in your area.