Empty Shelves Projects Work at Home and GA

UUs who attended General Assembly 1999 bought about 1,500 books for a Salt Lake City elementary school through a project called "Empty Shelves." The project was organized by First Unitarian Church, Salt Lake City, UT (380 members), and will be repeated at GA 2000 by a Nashville congregation for a public school.

Similar book-purchasing projects have been created and carried out by individual congregations as their own social service projects. "If a congregation wants to provide 100 or 200 books for a local school an Empty Shelves project will work well," says Joan Proctor, member of the Salt Lake City congregation and organizer of their Empty Shelves project.

All Souls UU Church, Kansas City, MO (360), bought books for a local charter school for high-risk children that is housed in the church building. The books were bought at reduced cost from an independent bookstore, then sold before and after church services.

"It was a big win all the way around," says coordinator Lois Reborne. "We learned about the school and the school learned about the church. We supported a family-run bookstore to the tune of about $900. Because we sold the books for list price we raised about $180 for our own religious education department. And best of all, the books were given directly to the children to keep. We had enough for every child to choose two."

At Birmingham Unitarian Church, Bloomfield Hills, MI (607), a partnership with an inner-city school in nearby Pontiac prompted the congregation to collect 3,000 books to fill the school's library in 1998. "We'd been doing some tutoring in the school and we noticed their empty bookshelves," said Walt Johnson, chair of the book project.

Some books were ordered through school catalogs, but most came out of members' bookshelves at home. The project also fits with the congregation's mission statement, which calls on it to "make a contribution to the world we live in," says Johnson.

Congregations that undertake Empty Shelves projects should be prepared to go the extra mile, Johnson and others say. School libraries that are short of books often have other critical needs. At Salt Lake and Birmingham, members of the congregations spent many hours cataloging the books, including affixing bar codes. A dozen members at Birmingham also helped students find and check out books, assisting the once-a-week librarian.

Other recommendations:

• Have books on hand when members of the congregation are ready to buy.
• The Salt Lake congregation ordered most of its books through a bookseller that it had used for years for its Sunday booktable. Booksellers also usually give charitable institutions large discounts, she says.
• Use school photos as visual encouragement for book buyers. Ask the principal to speak at a Sunday service to help make a connection with the school.