- A group opportunity. Invite your friends.
-
8 people are interested
Build a lending library box for a shuttered school
ORGANIZATION: Access Books Bay Area
Please visit the new page to apply.
- A group opportunity. Invite your friends.
-
8 people are interested
To sign up for this opportunity please fill out the sign-up form on our website: https://accessbooksbayarea.org/volunteer-opportunity/build-a-little-library-box/
In today’s era of distance learning, many schools and districts have been unable to provide access to pleasure reading books to their students, as school and classroom libraries have been temporarily closed for the 2020-2021 school year.
To support these unique challenges during these unprecedented times, the team at Access Books Bay Area is offering public schools in need a wooden lending library book box. Similar to a Little Free Library, these library book boxes are filled with books from Access Books Bay Area’s stock of gently used books for children to borrow and return on the honor system.
The library book box program provides students access to books that they can take and exchange during distance learning, ensuring that they continue to read for pleasure. Once a public school agrees to participate in the project, the following steps are taken:
- Volunteers construct, paint, and install the library book boxes in an accessible location on the school’s campus.
- Access Books Bay Area fills them with inviting, exciting books and provides stock to the school for refilling the library book boxes when they become depleted.
- The school’s personnel monitors and maintains the library book boxes on an ongoing basis.
Want to get involved with our library book boxes program and give back to students in need? Here’s how you can help:
Donate a pre-made book box or volunteer the materials and time required to construct a new one. Interested volunteers will be provided with sample plans and materials lists when you reply to this opportunity.
Note that you will need to have basic construction tools and expertise, and purchasing the materials will cost you about $150. This is a good project for a small group of volunteers to do together.
Sign up form: https://accessbooksbayarea.org/volunteer-opportunity/build-a-little-library-box/
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Opportunities
About Access Books Bay Area
Location:
80 Harriet Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, US
Mission Statement
Our mission is to level the literacy playing field for K-8 students living in poverty by providing high quality, high-interest, culturally relevant books, and a transformed school library space that invites students to spend time and read. We believe that books change lives, and that for children living in poverty, the school library is the best way to connect children with pleasure reading books. Studies have shown that reading for pleasure is one of the single greatest indicators of future academic success, yet the state of California provides no dedicated funding for school libraries, and many of the schools in the Bay Area have not funded their school libraries for decades, leading to out-dated collections and unattractive facilities. Our organization changes lives by making sure that the school library is an attractive place full of wonderful, interesting, recent, and culturally relevant books that will help them become lifelong readers.
Description
We provide books to low-income schools where approximately 90 percent of students live at or below the poverty line. Most students at the schools we serve are children of color and children of immigrants. Our organization provides brand new, hardcover, high quality books to school libraries and gently used books to teachers for classroom libraries, as well as improving the library space by painting colorful, reading-based murals and providing new comfortable reading furniture.
We complete 2-3 library renovation projects each academic year, each taking place on a Saturday from 9am - 2pm. Volunteers from partner community service organizations collect the gently used books to be donated and provide volunteers for the project day.
We serve school around the bay area, although most of our work to date has been concentrated in the south bay and peninsula areas. We have renovated nine elementary and middle school libraries in high poverty areas to date, and have applications pending for four more, one of which will be renovated this spring.
CAUSE AREAS
WHEN
WHERE
Your house somewhere in the Bay AreaSan Francisco Bay Area, CA 94301
DATE POSTED
January 29, 2021
SKILLS
- Painting
- Carpentry
- Woodworking
GOOD FOR
- Teens
- People 55+
- Group
REQUIREMENTS
- We estimate that it will take you 8+ hours to construct the box, depending on your level of skill.
- You can either paint the box yourself, or you can donate it unpainted, and another volunteer will paint it. You can also volunteer to install the box yourself at a school site we have selected, or we can have it installed by other volunteers.