HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR BOOK BUDDY FRIENDS!

Our Volunteers. Working right up to the holidays, Book Buddies volunteers sorted and boxed donated books to get them ready for our spring Book Celebrations. As always, the Reagan High School chapter of the National Honor Society has been sending volunteers on Monday evenings, right into the final exam period, along with volunteers from John Jay High School. On December 13 Wal-Mart regional managers showed us their holiday spirit by working hard to sort and box up an entire Gaylord carton of books — about 2,000 books in one morning! That’s the holiday spirit!

Book Drives in December. Our Book Drive Committee has been busy bringing in books from a number of drives in San Antonio and beyond. Once again this year Green Valley Elementary School in Schertz did a hugely successful drive, yielding nine big boxes of children’s books. Thanks again to Theresa Gomez and her enthusiastic group of teachers and students at Green Valley!

Other book drives benefiting Book Buddies in December were those of Alpha Pi Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., the KLRN book drive affiliated with The Great American Read, and Aventine Hill Partners (who once again raised a large number of books during their holiday drive). Thank you all for making a big difference in the lives of San Antonio’s children.

Start the New Year Right. Want to keep that holiday spirit alive into the New Year? Consider a gift to help Book Buddies further our mission to bring books into the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Just make sure your gift indicates it’s for “Book Buddies of SAYL,” and it will be used to help defray the costs of operating a nonprofit that brings tens of thousands of books to kids who may never have owned a book.

Or help us by joining the most enthusiastic volunteer group going: the people who help us sort, count and box up those books to get them ready to take to the schools for our May Book Celebrations. Just email bookbuddies@saylonline.wpengine.comto put yourself on our contact list. You’ll get notices of volunteer times when you can sign up to help.

We wish you all a 2019 full of happiness and good reading!

 Aventine Hill Partners’ 1152 books they collected

Wal-Mart regional managers who helped sort books