Velocity Of Books

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.

 Elementary School Book Bank

There are many things you can do to promote literacy in your community.

Here are a few ideas.  There are numerous successful programs that we've sponsored.  It will likely take months for us to add them all to this page, but want everyone to start thinking about what they can do to be part of the solution.  (please email us to add ideas to this list)

• Donate books to schools, prisons, medical centers, homeless shelters, food banks, nursing homes...
• Create a book bank at your local school
• Host a book swap at a senior center/ community center
• Host a book sale and donate remainder books
• Provide books to home bound adults
• Volunteer at a literacy council
• Teach an adult to read / contact your local literacy council for guidance
• Tutor a student / contact your local school for guidance
• Read to seniors or students
• Contact your local prison and ask what books they need - then do a book drive to meet the need.
• Establish a summer reading initiative for kids & adults.  Be sure to get the word out BEFORE the end of school.

In the future, we will create links with separate pages for each of these ideas. 

We will share instructions and community feedback.

It is our goal to support the grassroots efforts of community organizations, so that illiteracy may be eradicated.

This Sunday, June 19, 2016, Jack III, Julian and Carolyn will begin their tour of the United States to eradicate illiteracy.  They are meeting with clubs, groups, associations, councils, foundations, schools and non-profits, which promote literacy. 

Velocity of Books encourages book sales. Sales are an

opportunity to generate revenue, while providing books

of interest at an affordable cost.