To sign up for this opportunity, please fill out our sign-up form on our website: https://accessbooksbayarea.org/volunteer-opportunity/donate-books/
With the pandemic still raging around the Bay Area, school libraries remain closed, and curbside service is rare in the Bay Area's poorest neighborhoods. Access Books Bay Area is getting books into the hands of the children who need them most, building their literacy skills, getting their attention off of a screen to read a book, through our little library book boxes initiatives, and direct book giveaways at meal distributions. But we need your help! We need more books to stock these efforts. If you have books to give, either from your personal collection, or if you are willing to purchase them, please read on for our book donation specifications.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT ADULT BOOKS OR BOOKS MORE THAN 5 YEARS OLD.
We accept the following types of book donations:
Used Books - You can give a new life to the books you don’t need anymore!
Please only recent/high quality, elementary school books.
Please no workbooks, or books that are worn or have been marked in.
No adult books or young adult books.
We’d rather have fewer, higher quality books than a larger number that includes low interest/old books.
We generally have more need for books for younger readers, grades K-2.
Graphic novels are very popular. Bilingual books in Spanish are welcome.
Examples of popular titles: Dog Man (and other Dav Pilkey), Elephant & Piggie (and other Mo Willems), Geronimo Stilton, Fly Guy, Dork Diaries, Pete the Cat, Splat the Cat, I Survived, Babymouse, Hilo, Narwhal, Dragonbreath, and more
New Books - of course we love receiving new books! You can purchase books in the following ways:
Our Books4School wishlist - this is a small family-owned bookseller with a similar mission to ours, where you can purchase very low cost new books.
Our Amazon Wishlist: https://tinyurl.com/abbawish (Please note that this wishlist generally shows the hardcover version of book titles, which we prefer for library use. Choose the paperback version - paperbacks are great for book drives, cheaper and the books will go to our little lending libraries!)
Another option is to make your own shorter wishlist, of books your child likes, and share that for people to browse/buy from
Donors can purchase books locally at Linden Tree or Books Inc.
If you are interested in running a book drive in your neighborhood, and collecting even more books for us, please see our other volunteer opportunity to run a book drive here: https://accessbooksbayarea.org/volunteer-opportunity/conduct-a-book-drive-with-your-kids-for-a-lending-library-box/
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.
Since our founding in 2016, we have provided over 5000 new books, and 15,000 used books to schools. We have served nearly 4000 students and their families, have worked with more than a dozen different service organizations, and have had almost 400 volunteers work on our projects.
Children & Youth
WHEN
We'll work with your schedule.
WHERE
contact us for exact drop-off locationBay Area, CA94303
(37.45306,-122.11783)
DATE POSTED
June 1, 2021
SKILLS
Literacy / Reading
GOOD FOR
Kids
Teens
REQUIREMENTS
The time it takes you to collect books to donate. :)
