DiscussMormonism.com

Apologies Mods, as I actually tried to put this in Outer Darkness, but wouldn't you know that there's no way to add a topic there.

I'm helping to start a charity with some do-gooder writing friends called Fill the Shelves where librarians of needy public schools post Amazon wish lists and donors buy a book or three that gets shipped directly to the school library in question. We got this idea a couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine posted a picture of the empty book shelves of her children's school library. A bunch of people passed it along, including a retweet by Neil Gaiman, and the library's Amazon wish list emptied out within a couple of hours.

We only launched our larger project yesterday and have already sent more than $1,200 dollars worth of books on their way to our initial batch of libraries. We need a few things to keep this rolling. First, more needy school libraries, so if you know of any contacts or disadvantaged schools, please forward their contact information to our web site email at contactfilltheshelves@gmail.com. It is super easy for librarians to set up a wish list and start to receive books.

Second, the farther this link and message spreads the better. Any tweeting, sharing, etc., is greatly appreciated. Finally, if you have a few extra bucks, consider browsing the wish lists of our first batch of libraries and making a small purchase.

http://filltheshelves.org/

Thanks!

Sansfoy

I love books.

Nectar of the gods, books are.

This is a great idea! I am going to place this in our Off Topic section so more folks can see it.

liz3564 wrote:This is a great idea! I am going to place this in our Off Topic section so more folks can see it.

Thanks. We're up to $1,500 worth of new books in less than twenty-four hours and supposedly have 4-5 more school libraries on the way. I have big hopes that this might take off and be something great.

We filled one of the two wish lists and are almost there with the other two. $3,400 worth of books sent so far and some more schools on the way. The only problem is I don't think we have the reach yet to really nail this, so we're kind of thinking spend most of October getting new libraries, finishing off the last two wish lists, and then trying to push it again at the first of November, maybe get it just a little bit bigger each time.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped. It feels great to finally do something about something, rather than stand at a distance and bitch about it, which is my standard operating procedure.

We've got some new schools up if anyone wants to buy a book or two. Head shaking when you look at a picture like this one and imagine those nearly bare shelves trying to feed the reading hunger of 1,400 kids.