book relief

[marathoner452]

Je suis epuissee.  (Is that how you spell it?  It's been awhile since I took French.)

I spend about 4 hours today boxing up donated children's videos for Book Relief, a First Book initiative whose goal it is to provide 5 million new books to children affected by the 2005 hurricanes.  They're more than halfway there too, with 2.8 million books.  The site where I worked today is south of Baltimore, not far from the bridge if you're familiar with the area.  The Coast Guard has donated warehouse space, which is awesome, and there were about 20 of us there today getting kid's educational videos ready to be shipped down south.

As an added bonus, since I was the only AmeriCorps volunteer there today and pretty much everyone else left at the end of the day were Coast Guard people, I am now an honorary "Coastie." 

Maybe not the best idea in the middle of marathon training though.  I'm supposed to run 5x800 tonight (or the equivelant because the stadium's in use for a...soccer game, I think).  Whoops.  I have less than no energy right now and bed sounds really nice, but then I'd disappoint my coach if I didn't get the miles in.  Bed.  Or run.  Bed.  Or run.  Decisions, decisions.

Goodnight.

~Bethany

EDIT:  Sometimes bed wins out, just so you know that marathon runners aren't quite as wierd as you thought.

Comments

[batemanenroute.livejournal.com]

Je crois que c'est juste, ce que tu as ecrit. :)

[black-op.livejournal.com]

Cool. Sounds like a worthwhile charity. Sleep well.

[roadwarrior220.livejournal.com]

I've been looking for something like that around here. The Annapolis Book Festival is at Key School sometime in early May next year--May 5th I think. I'll probably be at Build-a-thon around that time.

I was gonna run after our board meeting last night, but I came home and could barely keep myself sitting upright. Oh well.

Hope you slept well, Coastie. :-)

~Adam

[yukonsally]

I just picked up my old books from my parents' house on Sunday. They are in fantastic condition, they could all pass for new. There are about 10 or 12 books I don't want to keep and those links don't seem to have addresses where I can donate them. Do you know of any places I can donate pre-owned but in fabulous condition books?

[marathoner452.livejournal.com]

What kind of books? For what ages?

You might be able to do a Google search for a library down South that would take used books that are still in good condition. Or a thrift store maybe?

I'll have to think about that one.

~Bethany

[yukonsally]

Mostly teen age.. I don't know, I read them when I was 11 or 12 but I've always read at a much higher level. Probably middle school?

Thrift store is last resort, right after donating them to the Club I used to work at. They'll never get read there. I'd much rather have them in a library in the South

[marathoner452.livejournal.com]

What I'm finding is about what I suspected-that because of limited human resources, they're looking for financial contributions over donations of books: http://nutrias.org/~nopl/foundation/donationsfaq.htm. If you do want to send books, go here: http://www.betterworldbooks.com/programs/RebuildNOPL.aspx.

I would think that the best bet would be to find a way to sell the books (yard sale, maybe?), then send the money down to the NOLA public library or another public library system on the Gulf Coast.

~Bethany