New Bank Directors
The founders of the Central Valley Book Bank, Skip & Mary Lee Sherwood, will be leaving the Book Bank in December. The new Coordinator for the Bank will be Kevin Burriss who will take over the day to day operations and oversee book distributions. In addition, Linda Dippel, United Way of Fresno County, will work with volunteers and assist with special events. Finally, staff from the Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service Leaning at Fresno State will help direct the book drives conducted by the Marketing students in the Craig School of Business.
Business at the Book Bank will continue as usual. However, there will be a change in the email address for contacting the Bank. Please change your address book to the following: centralvalleybookbank@gmail.com. All other contact information, including phone number and mailing address remains the same.
New Children’s Book Sale
On Saturday, December 6 (9:00 a.m. – Noon), the Central Valley Book Bank will hold a children’s book sale for teachers. All books are new and will be sold for up to 80% off the publisher price. Many books will be sold for $1. Cash and checks only (no purchase orders). This is a great opportunity for teachers to obtain books for holiday gifts or to enhance their classroom libraries. The sale will take place at the Book Bank located at 4949 E. Kings Canyon (United Way of Fresno County building), which is just west of Willow, next to Kragen. Supply is limited, so come early for the best selection.
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Fall Book Distribution to Fresno Unified Schools
On October 11 & 25, eight elementary schools from Fresno Unified were invited to select free books from the Book Bank. Over 7,000 books were distributed to Figarden, Slater, Bakman, Hamilton, Aynesworth, Wolters, Vinland, and Birney. The books will be used for a variety of purposes including building school and classroom libraries, reading incentives and to encourage parental participation. In the spring additional schools from other school districts will be invited to participate in one of the Book Bank distributions.
Book Distributions to Nonprofit Programs
In addition to the school distributions, an additional 13,000 books have been provided this fall to a variety of other regional programs including Reach Out and Read, Every Neighborhood Partnership, Marjaree Mason Center, Centro La Familia Advocacy Service, Encourage Tomorrow, Catholic Charities, U.S. Military, Friends of the Library, Crestview Charter High School, Focus Forward, Specialized Foster Parent Training, Early Head Start, Faithful Feet, & Mother’s Voice. Many of these books are given away to children to take home, read and share with others.
CVBB - Our First Year
A total of 45,500 books with an estimated value of $180,000 were distributed during out first year of operations. One of our goals was to increase the distribution of books to teachers at schools serving students in low income neighborhoods. To this end, approximately 26,500 books were distributed to 193 teachers at 19 schools in Fresno, Lindsay, Armona, Hanford, Caruthers, and Reedley. A conservative estimate is that these books will impact a minimum of 5,000 children.
The remaining 19,000 books were provided to 25 different programs aimed at improving literacy in our area. Programs serviced included foster care training, parenting, early childhood development, summer reading, and after school tutoring. A partial list is provided below. While it is difficult to determine the number of children impacted by these distributions, a conservative estimate would put that number at approximately 2,250.
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