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What a pleasure to serve as the keynote speaker to celebrate the end of the Educator Institute, sponsored by the Southern New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. To be at the intersection of education and industry is thrilling. When Larry was a teacher, he was in the 2018 cohort in which a 15 teachers spent part of their summer touring major industries and businesses, among them Mannington Mills, Radwell, Rizzieri, Campbell's, Subaru of America, Inc.. Teachers need to prepare students for the "real world" and we're thankful that the Chamber makes this possible.   
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Jesse Ambriz and Sherri Ahlers, of Mercer County, are dedicated volunteers who have sourced and distributed tens of thousands of books over the years. To ignite book collection in the Princeton area, we have installed bins this summer with the Lawrenceville Swimming Association and the Ben Franklin Swim Club. Together, they are opening our first permanent collection station in a Princeton residential garage that will be able to fit up to 5,000 books! Please reach out to [email protected] or to Jesse - [email protected] to learn how to donate your kids and grown-up books.
Our first hard-hat tour was a HUGE success with many thousands of dollars pledged. Together we are building the model book bank that will soon distribute up to 4 million books each year!    What a blast going mobile to engage with the community and collect three tons of books on back-to-back days. A big thanks to our friends at BookMates for hosting at the JCC on Thursday, and to the Promenade for partnering with BookSmiles and the AWA to collect book and pet supplies on a gorgeous Friday afternoon.  Diane McCauley Cummins, 2003-4 NJ State Teacher of the Year had a vision: get rock star teachers to volunteer their time in the Book Bank with Rowan University student teachers. Everyone had a blast - laughing, sharing, and learning about BookSmiles' mission - to outfit every teacher with a classroom library and to get a library into the homes of children who need books. Imagine what we can do in a larger book bank: 🔵Several dozen educators can have meaningful and impactful in-service sessions. 🔵The Book Bank can serve as a place for teachers from all over Philly and New Jersey to mingle, socialize, and network. 🔵All new teachers from around the region can handpick a classroom library. Larry drove the van two hours to William Paterson University of New Jersey to give 5000 books away to soon-to-graduate teachers. The University made a nominal donation to defray the cost of the books and transportation. Are you a teacher who had to forage through Goodwill's shelves, paying a couple dollars per book for your classroom library? Or did you have to pounce on books at yard sales and library book sales? The new generation doesn't have to do this! Founded by a high school English teacher, BookSmiles makes teachers' lives easier, providing as many books as a teacher can carry away. When we're not distributing at teaching colleges, we open the Book Bank every Sunday morning and Wednesday afternoon for teachers to browse.A $35 yearly donation allows entry to the Book Bank all year long. Register here: BookSmiles.org But it takes a department head to initiate something like this. Thanks for inviting us Professor Margaret Renn!   Larry and Margaret Renn - Director William Paterson's office of Field Experiences
 Food rescue organizations like Sharing Excess do more critical work than we do at BookSmiles. What can be more important than feeding a hungry child? How can one read and learn on an empty stomach? But we break the cycle of intergenerational poverty in ways our food bank partners cannot. Providing immediate access to quality books for babies in cradles gives children a chance to read their way to a better life. Books are the physical stepping stones to academic success, which builds a stronger workforce. Research shows that people who use food banks and pantries have much lower literacy levels than those who regularly shop Trader Joes and Whole Foods. This is why we're so glad to work with our friends at Sharing Excess, providing TONS of quality children's books that get dispensed with TONS of food. BookSmiles Director of Development Emily Loughlin (far left) and I enjoyed mingling with Emily Doris and Olivia S. Molina at The Campbell's Company last week. If you've read this far, learn how you can help with our mission: booksmiles.org  What happens to weeded books from colleges and universities? We know that BookSmiles is the best place for books culled from library collections. We trade several tons of adult books each week for several tons of quality kids books. What a pleasure visiting the Gitenstein Library to collect outdated books to fuel our mission. We went in with our BookSmiles truck and extracted over 3000 books. Watch carefully as our estate-library program starts serving higher education. Do you have an estate library to donate? Or how about books from a college library. Please contact [email protected].  Here is our Carter Fichter, our Estate Manager.
 It's been a very busy December as we approach our 4,000,000th book distributed. And what a pleasure to spread book-joy with new friends, David Adelman and Rahim and Tanisha Thompson of the Thompson Family Foundation. 
A few days before, Larry and Emily had a great time distributing books at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, in parallel with a coat giveaway by the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia. The Jalen Hurts Foundation purchased beautiful coats, and it was so great meeting Bree Hurts. Thanks for the invite, Justin and Rachel Fishman!
Tigris Foundation broke a record! They coordinated a POWERFUL drive that filled our truck TWICE in one day - harvesting 14 overloaded pallets of grown-up and kids books - about 16,000 total. They made it into a dynamic community event, harnessing the help of elected officials, neighbors, and the host - Upper Dublin Lutheran Church. We will trade adult books for their weight/bulk in used kids books. We encourage faith-based communities to across NJ and the Philly region to stage similar book drives. |
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July 2026
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Location7300 North Crescent Blvd. #10, Pennsauken, NJ 08110
Phone: 856-661-7480 |
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