Our Programs
Book Donation Program
(Formerly Books to Students)
This program works to connect schools (with priority given to Title I or Low Income) and non-profit Community Organizations with books that will help them to continue their work. The donated books can be used to create or supplement a library or classroom collection, or with the plan that they will be distributed directly to the people who are being helped — which could be students or other community members.
Author Events
This program includes author events at our stores (including weekend day story-times with children's book authors and evening events for readers of all ages) and taking authors into the community.
Our school author visit program is free to schools. We donate copies of the visiting authors’ books to Low Income and Title I schools. As this program continues to grow, we will expand how many books we can donate, giving them directly to students as part of these visits.
Book Fairs
Our In-Person Book Fair program works as both a fundraising opportunity for the event hosts (school or community organization) as well as a fundraising program for the host school or organization. 20% of any (pre-tax) sales made through the book fair will be donated back to the hosts as either a check or an in-store shopping credit to purchase books.
Based on the needs of a given school, we will donate a number of book vouchers, ensuring that everyone attending an event is able to get a book. The feedback we have gotten from teachers about (other) book fairs is that students whose families cannot afford books end up feeling excluded during these events. We want to make sure that everyone has the same opportunity to take home a book.
Building Community Partnerships
We have been in the business of creating third places since the founding of our Lake Forest Park store in 1998 and have grown to three store locations in the greater Seattle area. They are bookstores and community gathering places. They are spaces that we can bring people in to meet authors and participate in events.
Now we want to bring that same bookstore magic to events outside of the confines of our store locations. We want to work with local organizations — particularly non-profits — to bring a distilled version of the bookstore out to the community. From pop-up stalls at fundraisers and community gatherings, to support for programs, such as “Books to Prisoners”, Silent Reading at Seattle Center and our annual Pop-up at Greenlake Park supporting the Seattle Public Theater.
We will also look for opportunities to bring local authors into community spaces to support the work being done by non-profit organizations.
