It isn’t all that often that we, as individuals, can feel like we’ve directly contributed to a library’s actual collection. Many times, the books we donate to our local library end up on the half-price sale shelves, which is a great way to help the library raise much-needed extra funds, but you don’t always end up seeing the book YOU donated on the loan shelves, being lent out to other patrons.
Well–Guys Lit Wire is giving us all another fantastic opportunity to really add to a library collection. You might remember the two book fairs they’ve held for Ballou Sr. High School in Washington, D.C.:
Between our spring book fair and a small holiday fair
last November we have helped Ballou move from a library that had less
than one book for each of its 1,200 students at the beginning of 2011 to
a ratio now of two books per student. While this is an impressive
achievement and something we are quite proud of, the American Library
Association advocates ELEVEN books for each student. It’s obvious that
Ballou is still operating at a serious literary deficit and because of
that we have decided to commit ourselves to the long haul and stay with
this school library until they have everything they need.
While they got a lot of initial support when their plea first went out, they still need help, and every one of us can make a difference by buying even just ONE book off the wish list. You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve been able to put a book YOU love into the hands of high school students–students who are already grateful beyond words. For more information, please visit Colleen’s post on GLW.
