Thank you so much, students and teachers of Osage Elementary School for pitching in to create a drive that yielded 707 books! And I want to give a big shout out to  Lakshmi, Siani, Nivi, and Francesca for spearheading the drive!

Many of the books that you donated are already on a shelf-cart that Mishael and Alberto arranged here at Lindenwold High School.  Students will be encouraged to take books home for younger brothers and sisters.

I also had a meeting today with Fred Archeampong who runs a charity called African Book Challenge in conjunction with Ashland Church in Voorhees.  BookSmiles pledged to donate 2,000 books that Fred will ship to Ghana.  Fred told me that in Ghana it's not uncommon for 50 kids in a classroom to share a few books because that's all they have.  Let me know if you're interested in doing another drive this spring.  Would you like to send the books to children in  Ghana?

Invited by the New Jersey Literacy Association, I was thrilled to present the BookSmiles story at the Unlock Learning Conference today at Middlesex High School. The enthusiasm was overwhelming and dozens of teachers walked away with free books!

I explained to my colleagues how supporters and I were able to gather well over 100,000 gently used children's books in just under two years, simply by putting out calls on social media and building a brand.  As teachers, we are uniquely positioned to share and distribute.

What a pleasant surprise running into Dr. Gina Molina-Schiano, the ELA coach at Dr. William Horton School in Newark.  My friend Julie Nortillo gathered a full van-load of book for her school!

We had 30 volunteers of all ages who helped sticker and sort over 3,500 books at Beth El's MLK day of service. And we did it in less than two hours!

Thanks Temple Beth Sholom for hosting our book donation bin for eight months.  This site yielded a whopping 2,675 books! Here I am pictured with Rabbi Bryan Wexler who will do so much to keep the donations coming!

A ravenous reader, Skyler sourced almost 700 books for her mitzvah project.  Congregants from Congregation B'nai Israel in Milburn helped the effort, and her elementary school really pulled through!  Here are the cases of books about to be delivered to a KIPP school in Newark!  Great job, Skyler!