We're considering a used book drive that's a little different from what's already been described. We want to collect gently used children's books from our families, involve Student Council members to sort/pack them, and then donate them to xyz in our large metropolitan inner city. (xyz is still to be determined). Before we ship them all out, we want to invite our own teachers to select a total of x% or maybe y books per teacher for his/her classroom library. I hope we will get plenty of books to keep some and still have enough to make a meaningful donation. Any advice from a group who's already done this?
Another company is www.bookcloseouts.com
,which I discovered in another post on this very site! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Our school librarian was very excited when I showed the site to her, and I just sent in an order myself (again!) the other day. My only complaint is that when you get close to the holidays delivery time seems to lag a bit, so you have to take that into consideration.
I can't beat that price but Scholastic has grade level book bundles. Our teachers purchase them for reading incentives. You get 100 books for $99. There is a mixture of picture, chapter, hardcover, etc... that correspond to the grade level requested.
We have done a used book sale for 4 years now. We always get LOTS of donations. We have our sale at the end of the year and have the drive for 2 weeks over Memorial weekend to give parents lots of time to clean out.
Also last year I took $50 from the proceeds and went to thrift stores, yard sales, etc... and stocked up on more chapter books. Our local Hospice thrift store sold me over 200 books at 5 cents a piece after I explained why I needed so many books.
You can also find some good bargains on e-Bay. If you have the time.
The cheapest books (bulk) that I have yet found is at www.dollardays.com
. They have books starting at 0.17 for small early reader types, and many juvenile hardcover picture books for 0.67 each (last time I checked). They periodically offer shipping discounts or freebies as well. Worth looking at.
(NOTE: I don't work for them, nor receive $$ for this lead; I ran across the site while looking for interesting Holiday Shop items. Thanks!!)
Here is our situation. We have a PTO but our parents are the ones who are sponsoring the book drive of new and gently used books. Thus, we have no 501 status to use, unless our parent liason is willing to help.
I saw on here a long time ago where someone found a real cheap place on the web to get books. If we do not get enough we may try to purchase some.(we need between 750 and 800 for our primary}. If you have seen a place would you please let me know. Thanks!
