Baltimore Rock 'n Read was a massive success. We brought 15,000 books and gave out 10,000! We had fantastic weather and had no challenges there. The plaza of The World Trade Center was a great venue. It was a popular event, and exceedingly so at the end of the day. We had six volunteers, opposed to the sixty-four volunteers we had at the Rockville event. This forced everyone to work harder. The set up and breakdown took much longer with few volunteers.
There were additional challenges. JK Moving was unable to donate bookshelves for the event so it was necessary for us to buy our own shelves. Thankfully, Discover Books was able to pick up the shelves, tables and canopies from our office prior to the event. They delivered the materials to Baltimore with the books they donated. After the event, they loaded our materials in the truck and will deliver them back to our office. This was a tremendous help, and helped us avoid having to rent a truck, as we have in the past.
Although most of the materials were purchased for the prior event, we still had to purchase some material and do some preparation. We bought purple spray paint for our corn hole boards; helium and ribbon was needed to inflate and tie the balloons; cones to manage foot traffic, and portable speakers were need, as there wasn't electricity at the venue.
We made many connections at the event, such as teachers, principals and community leaders. One of the teachers was from Henderson Hopkins, a public school for underprivileged children. The following day, the teacher said that she'd talked to administrators from her school, and they were agreeable to accepting two pallets of books, or approximately 3,600 books.
Although the cost of the events have been great, they have made a fantastic difference in the community.
