Bookmobile News

Jennifer, Glen and Stacy celebrate in the 'mobile

In a testament to the generosity of Sonoma County residents, the First Annual United Way Children’s Book Drive netted 5,118 books for needy children and teens!  This is a truly amazing number considering that we set out hoping to collect 1,000 books and the drive lasted a mere two weeks.  Everyone involved responded beautifully.  Thank you, first of all, to everyone who got into the sharing spirit by going home and scouring the family library for goodies.  Thanks to all the host site Exchange Bank staff members who spread the word to their customers and encouraged them to fill the bins.  Thanks to the can-do folks at JDS Uniphase, who got behind the drive in a big way to pull in some special collections for us.  Thanks to all of the drivers and loaders who transported the books to the United Way office while Free Bookmobile staff was out of town.

And of course, a huge thank you to the tremendous United Way of the Wine Country staff, especially drive coordinator Stacy Ruppert, Jennifer O’Donnell, and all of their team members who lifted, sorted, counted, labeled, and boxed the books.  This is a real victory, boosting our supply at just the right time, and it will give thousands of children access to books that they wouldn’t otherwise have.  We began handing them out at low-income summer programs the very next day!