What a successful book drive! Thank you, Cathy - owner of Main Point Books in Wayne, PA - for sponsoring a drive that prompted several dozen patrons and neighbors to clear off their shelves and conveniently donate children's and grown up books! 

We gathered over 3,000 books which will help fuel our mission of getting books into the homes and hands of children living in book deserts throughout Philadelphia and New Jersey.   

The NJEA Convention was a hit! Sharing a panel with LeVar Burton before thousands of people was invigorating and inspiring.  And thanks to a generous grant from the NJEA, the BookSmiles team distributed 10,000 new books to over 4,000 teachers. 

So great to be featured on a local station, and my Senior Project class is in the mix.  And better yet to be introduced by the legendary Jim Gardner!

A huge shout-out to our new partners, Trenton's Parents Engaging Parents.  Coordinator Gabby Douglas was the very first to pick up books at our soon-to-open Book Bank in Pennsauken.

Here are her words: "Parents Engaging Parent Book bag giveaway was a success! Our goal was to help soften the financial burden that Covid-19 and inflation is causing. Our partnership with BookSmiles and Tona Buck helped us to provide families with over 300 books & boxes sanitary products! We engaged with other parents & community leaders & had fun!!! Thanks to all the volunteers."

Matthew Strauss was one of the first kids to borrow a bin and do a book drive shortly after we opened the Book Bank. He was 10.
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Three years later, well after earning BookSmiles Ambassador status, he coordinated a drive among several swim clubs, yielding an insane 10,525 books. Way to go, Matthew! Your total count is 16,290!

What an honor to receive the NPO Community Partner of the Year!  We met new friends and I was able to share BookSmiles' vision and action with other important nonprofit organizations across New Jersey.  

The mayor of Cherry Hill, Susan Shin Angulo, visited our first pop-up collection station, where we used our truck to collect over 2,000 books! Thank you for hosting, Republic Bank.  Let's do it again! 

​BookSmiles makes it convenient and fun for people to donate their book-wealth. Do you know where we can park the truck for a few hours, to have people come from far and wide to fill it?  Please contact larry@booksmiles.org.

A big thanks to Berkshire Hathaway Realtor Lisa Budnick for inviting BookSmiles to The Philadelphian.  We closed out a library estate for one of her clients. 
BookSmiles is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit orgainzation, so we can furnish donors with a receipt for tax purposes. 

​Here are the most desired books:

• High quality literature and classics.
• Signed first editions by prominent authors
• Books published before the Civil War.
• Leather bound books.  
• Older interesting books with immaculate dust jackets
• Biographies and books about specific history
• Popular/influential authors in the vein of Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon, KurtVonnegut, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Winston Churchill, James Baldwin, George R.R. Martin, Isaac Asimov, J.R.R. Tolkien, and all the authors English and history majors had in colleg.

Please contact larry@booksmiles.org to make arrangements to donate.

"SJ Boys Read has collected over 8000 books since placing our BookSmiles bin at Moorestown Hardware! We are grateful to Julie and Pete Bender, owners of Moorestown Hardware for hosting the bin for nearly two years! We also have a collection bin in front of Moorestown High School.  Here we are with BookSmiles Founder Larry Abrams and Moorstown Mayor Nichole Gillespie.

Please continue to donate your gently used children's books (infant to high school) to this great cause. Your book donations go to teachers and kids in need in our area.
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We truly appreciate the continued generosity of our friends and neighbors in Moorestown."

These are pictures from classrooms in the Dominican Republic, where cases of BookSmiles books recently landed. Here is Backpacks of Dreams volunteer Jeanette Alvarez affixing stickers as she prepares for the trip. Note the Spanish titles. See Jeanette sitting with happy children!

​BookSmiles has committed to supplying books for next year's trip to the DR. Won't you consider donating so that we can provide more books? Just visit our website and learn how: www.booksmiles.org