Imagine a home without books, a school with no library and a classroom with books so old that they wonder if we will ever get to the moon? We hear these stories every day and work very hard to alleviate these problems.
Since 2005, the East Bay Children’s Book Project has given away more than 840,000 books. We are on track to reach a goal of ONE MILLION in 2013. Of the children served, 82 percent are low income and 47 percent are English Language Learners. More than half the books go directly to children to take home and keep.
The EBCBP has been able to accomplish its mission through the kindness and generosity of others; Half-Price Books, bins at retail locations and student-led book drives. Our revenue is from private donations and small grants. Our minimal expenses include rent, supplies used to sort and display books, and the materials cost to build collection bins. There are NO salaries.
Through the generosity of our amazing donors, we have a constant supply of beautiful books. But, we have never been able to adequately cover the need for easy read, board, and bilingual books. We estimate that we need about 1000 of these books each week. Literacy programs and publishers are eager to give us free books. EBCBP only needs to pay the shipping: $0.45 a book.
Our goal is to raise $18,000 so that we can assure enough board, beginning reader, multicultural and bilingual books to meet the demand through the end of 2013. Please help us reach that goal. Any amount is appreciated.
We are a 501(c)(3) organization, so your donation is 100 percent tax deductible. You can make your gift the in person, by mail or through our website.
EBCBP
c/o Ann Katz
3801 Balfour Ave.
Oakland, CA 94610
Thank you.
Ann Katz, Director
East Bay Children’s Book Project
www.ebcbp.org
Great News
- Piedmont Grocery have collected more than 11,000 books for us. Now, they have chosen us as a recipient of their plastic coins campaign. When you visit them and bring your own bag, they will give you a coin to drop in the slot. Each coin translated to money for us.
- Dr. Matsuishi of El Cerrito is already collecting money for us and will soon start collecting books as well.
- Peets Dimond District will match any donations starting December 17th. We plan to decorate the store and introduce our program to the community.
We reopen on Tuesday, November 27th for book giveaway.
Please join us at High Street Station for our last fundraiser dinner and a chance to win money at the raffle game. This is scheduled from 5:30 to 7. Arrive any time for an absolutely delicious meal.
Here is the menu for that day:
Tuesday November 27th, 2012, $14.00
Cross Rib Roast
Supreme Orange and Almond Salad
Roasted Potatoes w/Rosemary
Pumpkin Flan
We have eaten at High Street Station. The food and service is outstanding and they are very excited about helping us with our mission.
CRAZY FUNDRAISER
Our next fundraiser is at Actual Cafe, corner of San Pablo and Alcatraz on Thursday, November 1st from 7 to 9 PM. This is a great event complete with a funky old bicycle to turn the bingo numbers, silly prizes, great beer, food and friendly people. We promise you a good time.
MILESTONE REACHED
We reached a milestone….800,000 books given away since 2005. We are well on our way to giving away ONE MILLION books. Does anyone want to guess the date when we will reach that goal?
VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE & BOOK GIVEAWAY
We just got a great photo of the voter registration event at 81st Avenue Branch Library, EnCompass & Acorn Woodland Schools. Kids got to choose free books while their parents registered.
BOOK COLLECTION BINS
We just received news that our Altamont Education Advisory Board grant was successful. And Alex Miller-Cole has built us 10 new stands. We are now looking for new locations to host these stands.
We just added a great new drop off location, Gymboree at 3433 Lakeshore Ave. Judy was delighted to add our book stand. It looks great in there since it matches their color theme.
Our latest drop off location is Laurel Bookstore at 4100 MacArthur Blvd. Lou Ann already knew about our program and is eager to collect books for us. We also added a stand at TechLiminal, 268 14th Street, Oakland.
We have 8 more stands ready for delivery. Please let us know if you know any merchants who would like to help us collect books.
FACEBOOK NEWS
We we now have over 500 Facebook fans. If you would like to become one of our fans, just click like on our Facebook site. We would love to get to 1000.