Early this year, the POP Project announced that we received our first-ever community grant: $1,000 from Asheville’s own Glass Foundation to purchase elementary and middle-grade children’s books.
At first, we planned on using the grant to purchase children’s books that we never seem to have available in large enough numbers (e.g., Spanish-language books, books featuring diverse characters, middle-grade fiction and nonfiction). However, the more we thought about the funds, and the more we explored local needs, the more we realized these funds could be used for something really special.
At the POP Project, we’re very used to delivering thousands of books per year on a marginal budget. However, we rarely have the opportunity to purchase brand new books. We knew we needed to find the right partner. And we knew we needed to make the money stretch as far as it could.
After spending much of the year searching for the right fit, we reached out to the Literacy Council of Buncombe County. Every year, the Literacy Council delivers Toys for Tots gifts to the children they work with in their mentoring programs, along with children of their adult clients. They’ve tried in the past to organize bookstore shopping trips with their youth, but often many kids can’t participate because of issues with scheduling or transportation.
We thought, “If the kids can’t go to the books, we’ll take the books to them.” After all, delivering books is what the POP Project does best.
POP decided to pair with the Literacy Council to allow the youth they serve to choose their own brand new books from a book fair list. Spellbound Children’s Bookshop* supplied the book list, along with a 20% order discount. The kids were given time to pick a book that they would want to read. Once the list was compiled, Spellbound placed the order and we waited (rather impatiently, we must admit) for the books to come in.
In total, we were able to order 85 brand new books for 50 children for just shy of our $1,000 limit. That came to an average of $11.55 per book—not an unreasonable price if you’ve shopped recently for gorgeous picture books or YA fiction!
The POP Project is always grateful to know that we made a difference in the lives of young readers—however small. We’re also grateful that the Glass Foundation entrusted us with these funds. As we head into 2017, POP hopes to orchestrate more book giving events like this one.
Stay tuned to see what we’re able to do next!
About the Glass Foundation
The Glass Foundation is a private family foundation helping the Western North Carolina region thrive as a whole community educationally, environmentally, and culturally and offer a distinctive quality of life. To read more about the foundation, go to glassfoundation.org.
*Full disclosure: The owner of Spellbound is on the POP Project Board of Directors.