By Daniele Berman, Communications and Events Manager
“Hi! You work at Book Harvest, right?”
That greeting across the grocery store aisle — from 6 feet away, of course — is how a community member found out she could pick up books outside our office and take them to the kids who live in her neighborhood.
I’m so glad I happened to run into her, and I’m so glad she’s keeping the kids in her neighborhood in mind while they’re out of school.
In these challenging days, our hearts have been warmed by the stories we’re hearing about how sharing books is helping parents and kids keep learning and having fun. One parent of two little ones shared that she got teary when she saw that we were still providing books outside our office, that it was just what SHE needed in that moment.
It brought huge smiles to our faces to see this picture on Instagram, of two Book Babies graduates who stopped by our shelves this week.
In fact, we were able to provide 1,131 books to kids in our community this week, including a whopping 711 that went out through those bookshelves outside our office, which we’re restocking daily.
Please keep sharing — both sharing books with your family members, and sharing your photos with us. And please keep stopping by our office (2501 University Drive, Durham, in the Rockwood Shopping Center) to take home books to read together.
We’re also still accepting donations in the bin beside our door, and out of an abundance of caution, we’re quarantining those donations for now. So if you and your kids have time to sort through their outgrown books while you’re at home, we welcome those donations. And if you’d like to send us new books to share with our kids, please visit our wishlists at The Regulator, a local bookstore here in Durham, and on Amazon — from both sites, you can have donations shipped directly to us.
In addition to restocking our bookshelves daily, we are also continually updating our Learning at Home page with resources we find that are helpful for keeping kids learning while they’re at home. And we’re broadcasting live on Facebook every Tuesday at 12 noon — we hope you will join our board chair Tabitha Blackwell this coming Tuesday, March 24.
Do you have a story or photo to share? I’d love to hear from you! Please email me at daniele@bookharvestnc.org.