community service

It may not exactly shock you, but we’re all in favor of literacy over here at bookstore people.  So when the marketing director of Open Books, a non-profit dedicated to promoting literacy in Chicago and throughout the world, contacted us and asked if we could help publicize their “blogathon,” we were happy to oblige.  I’ll let her tell you about the blogathon in her own words.

My name is Shoshannah Feinberg and I am a member of the marketing team at Open Books, a nonprofit social venture that operates an extraordinary used bookstore, provides community programs, and mobilizes passionate volunteers to promote literacy in Chicago and beyond.

Since your blog covers bookstores and Open Books just signed the lease for our used bookstore, we thought you’d be interested in our cause and this upcoming event.

On July 25, Open Books is participating in Blogathon 2009 in hopes of raising $2,500 to support our literacy programs throughout Chicago. During this virtual event, we will update our blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight!

Want to get involved? There are three ways to help:

1) Write a post on your own blog to help us raise awareness of the event and get people talking about literacy

2) Give a financial donation by becoming a sponsor

3) Join the Open Books Blogathon team! Blog with us during the 24 hours or help us organize contests, publicity, and other fun!

If you are interested in getting more information about Open Books or Blogathon 2009, feel free to ask! I have documents that can be sent upon request.

Back to me, Claire.  I checked out the website for Open Books and it’s a pretty appealing organization.  Many of their programs are aimed at students in the Chicago area, encouraging them as both readers and writers.  They operate an online bookstore called Better Worlds that offers free shipping and competitive prices, but donates a percentage of their profit from every sale to fund literacy programs. 

They’re also environmentally responsible: they offset their carbon footprint, and, more importantly, they . . .  well, I’ll let them tell it in their own words:

In addition to selling new titles, Better World Books supports book drives and collects used books and textbooks through a network of over 1,600 college campuses and partnerships with nearly 1,000 libraries nationwide. So far, the company has converted more than 25 million donated books into $6.5 million in funding for literacy and education. In the process, we’ve also diverted more than 13,000 tons of books from landfills . . .  we see our job as helping to find new homes for unwanted books. Thus far, we’ve donated nearly one million books to partner programs around the world. Our five primary literacy partners are Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children.

As you know if you read our blog regularly, Kim and I are somewhat reluctant to support mail order bookstores because we don’t ever want to lose the local indies that give us so much pleasure, BUT if you’re going to shop online, this seems like the place to do it.

Plus Open Books is opening a real bookstore in the fall!  It’s in Chicago, and I hope once it’s opened someone will visit it and write into us about it.  The same building will house their literacy center, with a computer lab, classrooms and community space.

I can’t imagine a better reason to buy books than to help fund the spread of literacy throughout the world.