Bookmobile News

The Free Bookmobile has great respect for the work various local Active 20-30 Clubs do on behalf of at-risk youth. It has been our pleasure to partner with them on occasion, including efforts to bring holiday celebrations to those who have less. The Active 20-30 club of Santa Rosa #50 is particularly enterprising, a group of like-minded young professionals between the ages of 20-39 who volunteer to improve the lives of  underprivileged youth in Santa Rosa. They do this through large scale fundraisers, but more importantly through direct philanthropic endeavors.

Apparently the respect is mutual because they have made a generous donation toward our outreach services for children! We will be putting the funds to good use in the Santa Rosa area, and look forward to partnering with the club directly at their annual Back to School Children’s Shopping Spree in early August. This is a terrific, morale-boosting event at which low-income kids receive a hot breakfast, haircut, free books (from us) and a school-oriented shopping spree at Coddingtown Mall so they are ready for the start of fall classes. Thank you, Active 20-30 #50!

Our good friends at Sonoma Country Day School have come through yet again! Enthusiastic SCDS teacher Ben Bacon has been a wonderful support on several projects, including one a few years ago that saw all the school’s Scholastic Book Fair points donated to the Free Bookmobile for new purchases. This spring Ben’s leadership club students, the Comet Leadership Council, set an ambitious goal to beat the old single-donation record of 8,000 books with a collection drive they called “Bananas for Books”.

The kids worked hard to spread the word throughout their community and even Head of School Brad Weaver got into the spirit by promising to wear a banana suit if the council met their goal! Not only did they succeed, to the tune of 9,023 books, but the quality of these titles is excellent. We are already giving them away and are very excited about the positive impact they’ll have over the coming months to help stem the dreaded summer reading skill slide, especially for those children who have few books in their homes. We are so grateful and salute Sonoma Country Day School for supporting educational opportunities that have significant real-world impact.