At Book Buddies the new year of book drives and volunteer activity is in full swing. Our Book Drive Committee, consisting of Maria Salinas, Rosa Maria Gonzalez, and Midge Breslof, is working on encouraging groups all over the city to hold book drives. And those books have been coming in! Concordia Lutheran Church, New Braunfels Public Library Book Sale, West Avenue Compassion, and our friends at Half-Price Books have contributed hundreds of books in just the last month.

But that doesn’t mean we’re resting on our laurels. We still need everyone who can to run a book drive, and that means anyone who belongs to any group: neighborhoods, churches, scout troops, sports teams. People love giving gently-used children’s books to kids who don’t have them. Book Buddies is committed to eliminating “book deserts” with our school Book Celebrations. We can’t do it without the good people who organize these book drives.

Volunteer Coordinator Maria Bush is getting volunteers mobilized. A number of our old friends have been signing up for our initial sorting and boxing volunteer days. We now have a sign-up list for volunteer times from now through next January at SignUp.com. If you are on our mailing list, you will get notices of a link to the SignUp website, where you can volunteer. If you are not on the list, please send an email to bookbuddies@saylonline.wpengine.com and we’ll put you on it. There is no obligation. But volunteering to help sort and box books for the children in the most at-risk schools is fun and very rewarding. You will meet new friends and leave knowing you’ve done a really good thing.

And we really need every Book Buddy volunteer to step up and help — a shipment of books from Better World Books has arrived. This means 24 gaylords, or about 11 tons of children’s books! That’s a lot of books to get ready for our Book Celebrations next spring, but with your help we can get them all ready to go.  You did it last year and you can do it again!

We’ll see you at Book Buddies!

Jane Welch, Book Buddies Coordinator

Check out the delivery of the 11 tons of books!