Twice a year, after our very successful book sales, the Friends of the Ridgefield Library (FORL) usually have thousands of unsold books. "We start our book sales with 30,000-50,000 books. After the sale, we'll still have about 10,000 high-quality books left," explains Book Sale Chair Cris Nichols. "We have always given books to local charities and the prisons; primarily organizations that Georgia Carrington, one of our Friends' Board members, had a relationship with. The rest of the books were picked up and recycled, and it broke my heart to get rid of those beautiful books. This fall we expanded our efforts, and created a new position on the FORL Board of Directors for Book Distribution."
FORL President Rhonda Hill explained, "We knew there were organizations out there who would love to have these books, but we needed someone to focus on it, do some research, and find them. In September, Julie Yaun started looking for non-profit groups who might be interested in these leftover books. She researched various groups she thought might be interested. Once she found an interested contact person, she invited them to come to the book sale on the last afternoon and take as many free books as their organization or its members could use."
The FORL invited local veterans groups, organizations that work with children and families, nursing homes, and basically any non-profit we could think of who might want free books. We invited about eighteen organizations to select free books on the last day of the sale, and about eleven came. We hope to expand our list of groups for future book sales.
The FORL also held a Teacher Appreciation event in December. "We invited Ridgefield teachers, school staff, and Board of Education staff members to come to the library and take as many free books as they wanted," Book Distribution Chair Julie Yaun said. "Considering we were deluged with rain all night, we had a pretty good turnout. We will hold another Teacher Appreciation event in the spring to thank them for all they do for Ridgefield's children."
Other ongoing efforts to distribute books include donating books to Big Brothers/Big Sisters and to active-duty military service members. FORL President Rhonda Hill personally delivered 50 pounds of books to her daughter, who is stationed at Fort Hood, TX. She will share them with her entire unit. We are investigating other ways to send books to members of the military.
The FORL also reached out to other Friends organizations in CT to see if any of them could use some of our surplus books. We received enthusiastic responses from the Friends of the Milford Library and the Friends of the Shelton Libraries (Huntington Branch). Each selected several hundred books to add to their book sales.
In addition to book sale leftovers, the FORL received hundreds of classroom books when a local school cleaned out its Literacy Library. We had at least a dozen copies, sometimes many more than that, of 30 different books. These classroom sets allow an entire class or part of a class to read the same title at the same time. The FORL got a tip from one of its members that a parochial school in Danbury might be interested in the classroom sets. Soon thereafter the books were delivered to St. Peter School in Danbury.
In speaking with our contact at St. Peter School, we learned that its teachers previously bought books for their classrooms with their own money and were thrilled to receive our donation. We've since learned about other schools that are also interested in receiving books; and we will work with them as soon as possible (children's books is the one category that doesn't have many leftovers after the book sales).
Happily, we were able to put together about four large boxes of books to donate to New Haven Reads. This organization tutors children in reading after school and helps families build home libraries to encourage parents to read to their children.They will use the books for tutoring, as well as giving children a book they can take home and keep. We will continue to work with as many children's charities as we can.
Two other groups are also being helped with FORL's unsold books. Sandy Koppen, FORL Vice-President, is collecting leftover and duplicate books to deliver to the little library in Chestertown, NY, where she spends her summers. She is also coordinating donations to the Nifty Thrifty Shop in Fishkill, NY, which plans to give a portion of its proceeds to the Stony Kill Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the environmental education programs and farming operations at Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center in Wappingers Falls, NY.
If you know of a non-profit group you think would be interested in receiving free books for its members, please email Julie Yaun at jmyaun246@gmail.com.
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