The Bitchery is ever an altruistic lot. Bitchery reader Marta Acosta sent me an email saying:
I buy lots of books, too many to keep or even give to my friends. I tend to donate them to the Goodwill because I figure someone will be happy to get a fairly new book at a good price. But I’d like to donate them (and my ARCs and regular copies of my books) to good organizations, like soldiers, military hospitals, women’s shelters, etc.
Perhaps you could do a call out to people asking if they have any suggestions and contact information about people collecting for these causes.
This is a good idea – thanks!
So: a general request –
Do you like to donate books? What’s your favorite place to donate? With the innate cheapness that is the USPS media mail shipping costs, we can pretty much send our books anywhere in the US for not a hurtful amount of money. So – please, give us the details: your library? Charity of choice? Home for the elderly? Book drive for soldiers serving overseas? Feel free to comment or email us offline if you rather, and we’ll post your suggestion for you.
And please, if you put your home address and tell us you want books? I shall smack you around with a 501(c)3 certificate.
My favorite is Books for Soldiers—http://booksforsoldiers.com/. There are enough women troops serving now that it’s high time we sent romance novels to soldiers. In addition, I’ve had male veterans tell me they used to like sitting around the barracks reading romance novels ‘cause they wanted a happy ending to offset the horror and boredom of their days.
I prefer giving to soldiers as well. I had sent some to a friend who was overseas at the time and they passed around anything they were sent. I sent over my ARC of Kushiel’s Dart, and it went through a platoon like wildfire.
Norification word… job51, reminding me that I have to focus on work again.
Thanks, Darlene! This was just the info I was looking for.
Thanks Darlene! Up until last summer I had a friend whose brother was in Iraq, and every four or five months I’d send books, magazines, baby wipes and lip balms…we’re thrilled he came safely home in the fall but I hate not having anyone to send that stuff to anymore.
The hardcover and more expensive novels, I donate to our local library. It’s small, they don’t have a big budget, and they sell what they don’t keep. So either way, I add to their collection. I give the cheaper stuff to Goodwill.
Glad I could help out. Our library also handles the shipping for the books, and got the newsletter today with comments from the soldiers:
“All the books went very quickly…I have established a library in my area [for] the troops that are in our hospital.”
One soldier requested medical books, since he’s the sole medic at a remote aid station. One of the physicians in Friends of the Library put together a box of books for him, and the sgt. sent this letter:
“…I never in my wildest dreams thought there were so many people who were so committed to those of us deployed in the combat zone…”
It’s a good program and I’m glad I could share the information here.
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http://www.adoptaplatoon.org/
I donate to my local library. We’re in a very small town, so it’s a small library, and they just don’t have much of a budget for books. And I’m on the Library Advisory Board. I usually donate between 75 and 100 books every year.
Actually, from my experience it’s really hard to donate books. It’s also very local too—even with media mail, it’s expensive to back and mail books. Plus you don’t want to give organizations books that don’t fit their guidelines. Some want paperbacks, some want hardbacks, some don’t want anything more than 5 years old. Honestly (and I’m a librarian so it pains me to say this, but it’s the truth), sometimes it’s okay to trash/recycle a book.
Books for soldiers don’t want/need romance by the way—between sending books that tend to have half-naked people on the covers to Muslim countries, and getting too much romance already, it’s too problematic to get involved in.
The Association of University Women will take a lot, if they are in your area. Some libraries will take them for either collection or booksales, but you have to check on what they want. Prisons might take your used books, but they often will only allow books to be sent from Amazon or the like. My college has a book sale every year and takes older/collectible books. Goodwill, etc. will take just about anything.
I tend to donate books to nursing homes, hospitals, women’s shelters—then to libraries and charities that write to request something for a fund raiser. I have sent books to soldiers as well. After Katrina, I sent a whole lotta books down there, and ADWOFF ran a book drive for Katrina victims. I bet they could still use some.
I also, regularly, box up massive amounts of my foreign copies and donate these to the Foreign Studies departments of universities and colleges.
http://www.soldiersangels.com
Adopt your very own soldier. I’m not sure but you might be able to ask for a female, though not specifically a romance reader.
(But I must admit I generally turn mine in for credit at a used bookstore.)
Thank you to all who take the time to find new homes for the books you no longer want. 🙂
I volunteer with our local library, and we’re always delighted to get donated books to either add to the collection or sell to buy something we need (money is always tight in library land).
Here’s my question though—(and since we’re all SMART bitches, I know that none of us are guilty of this), but why, oh why do people insist on foisting their nasty moldy, damp, smoke smelling or bug infested books to charity?
These are the same people who go around badmouthing the library because they can never find the books they donate in our collection.
Are we such bibliophiles that we cannot toss/recycle a book that’s past saving?
I give all of mine (okay, not the ones I wrote, but the others) to Big Brothers Big Sisters. First of all, they come right to my house and pick them up. And second, its a tax deduction. I did send a bunch to a New Orleans Library after Hurricane Katrina, but that was more work than Big Bros.
But I go to the Goodwill store to buy books to give to the homeless shelter and to my sister to give to her first graders.
So please don’t stop giving the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores entirely!
Until my soldier was sent home to the US, I was sponsoring a soldier through AdoptAPlatoon. He specifically requested in his introduction, “Please, no romance, we have plenty.” But I found history books, political books, and military history books that were mine for the taking, I sent those over – he was thrilled.
But man, I was so bummed when I saw that there was no need for romance.
I take the books I will not read again to the library. Since I am one of the catalogers I can be sure it will go in the collection if we don’t already have it. Well, almost anyway-I cataloged one that I read during college (Fanny Hill by John Cleland) and my supervisor deleted the record I worked to create claiming that it was on a list of books deemed unsuitable for public libraries. I don’t think such a thing exists and that she made that up. I’m just waiting for her retirement in a few years so I can put it right back in! I also wish people would not give us books in bad condition.
I have to add that my library HATES romance! They have the lamest collection and refuse to ILL the newest books. Donating to them is impossible!
SWAK,
Lucinda
If you know any Peace Corps volunteers, they love getting books in the mail. Media mail for abroad is not too hideously expensive. Plus, the main office in country has a volunteer library so once a book is read, it’s passed on.
Most states have at least onen Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) group that can get you addresses for current vols.
Help the readers of New Orleans as the rebuilding efforts continue:
BOOKS FOR THE BIG EASY
=========================
Harry N. Abrams, the publishing house, is leading a concerted effort to help restock the shelves of the New Orleans Public Library, which suffered critical losses due to Hurricane Katrina. The public can help by making donations directly to the library.
The library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fund-raising purposes. If you wish to participate, books may be sent to the following address:
RICA A. TRIGS, PUBLIC RELATIONS
NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC LIBRARY
219 LOYOLA AVENUE
NEW ORLEANS LA 70112
Send books by US Postal Service Media Mail for a cheaper rate.
Another good place to check with is your local literacy council. I’m not bashing genre fiction when I say that it is written at a fairly accessible level. My SIL has a MA in ESL/EFL instruction, and she has been known to use romance novels with her adult students.
I’ve also had good luck with hospitals, nursing homes, and long term care facilities.
I’va also had a problem finding a home for my romance books. I have taken to swapping them online at http://www.paperbackswap.com which, is awesome. If you want to donate your books, maybe you could swap them out first and donate the ones you get back. The thought of throwing any book away makes me sad.
I teach HS English at a small charter school with no school library. I have another on-line community I have been a part of for years, and I started a classroom library this fall.
I accepted anything (I believe in variety, and I do not censor, unless it’s visual nudity) and I got about 500 hugely varied books—everything from bios to romance to politics to a hella lot of fantasy.
If anyone wanted to toss romance my way, I’d love it! My credo is “Keep ‘em reading”—sometimes “Get ‘em Reading” and having a variety is key. Most of my students are Latino or multiracial, so multiculti romance or Spanish books are also fab.
Profile addy is good, for questions.
I rotate my donations. Batch one to my local public library, #2 to my mother in law to share with her friends, #3 to Goodwill, #4 to my hometown used book store, and #5 to whatever charity drive is going on at work. That way I don’t overload any one place or group, and be sure that as many different people as possible can enjoy the stories.
Oh, and if the book is mildewy, badly stained or torn it goes in the trash. I used to work in a public library, and I know that there comes a time when a paperback has reached the end of its life cycle. No matter how sad it is.