NJ nonprofit pleads: Without help, thousands of kids may lose access to books

💔 South Jersey nonprofit BookSmiles may be forced to halt book collections

🚚 The founder says rising costs are threatening their statewide book-sharing mission

💪 BookSmiles hopes generous NJ residents will step up

PENNSAUKEN — A South Jersey nonprofit that has dedicated itself to giving books to children in need from all over New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia area desperately needs the public’s help to keep collections afloat.

BookSmiles, based in Pennsauken, began in founder Larry Abrams’ garage in 2016. A year later, it became a nonprofit, and since then, there has been explosive growth. So much so that BookSmiles has become the largest kids' book bank of its kind in the nation, Abrams said.

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How BookSmiles keeps books out of New Jersey landfills

Abrams said for years, BookSmiles has worked to solve two major problems in New Jersey.

One, when children outgrow books, parents don’t know what to do with them because kids’ books have no resale value, Abrams said. Therefore, they are often discarded and end up in landfills. To keep them out of the waste stream, BookSmiles takes these books off people’s hands.

Two, there are many children in New Jersey who lack access to books. “We divert great quality kids’ books from waste streams, and we get them into the homes of kids,” Abrams said.

The organization will gladly partner with schools and provide enough books for students to pick out three books for free. More about this program is on the BookSmiles website.

BookSmiles also collects massive amounts of adult books. He said they need the adult books because they trade them by the tons each week for kids’ books from online book sellers.

Storage costs threaten to shut down book collections

However, with the increasing number of donations over the years, the warehouse began to run out of space.

To help, the Kiwanis Club of Point Pleasant rented a storage unit a few years ago to store between 3,500 and 4,000 books on the organization’s behalf.

About every two months, volunteers from BookSmiles would drive from Pennsauken to Point Pleasant to empty the storage unit, bring books back to their warehouse, and put them into the hands of children in need.

But, Abrams said storage unit costs have soared to $207 per month, and he can’t afford to keep the space anymore.

Now, he’s turning to the kindness of New Jersey residents for help.

Nonprofit founder pleads for help for free or low-cost space

“Ideally, we’re looking for someone to provide or donate free storage space in their garage, or perhaps in their business, if it’s ground level, and if there is just a room that isn’t being used, we can gather the books there,” Abrams said.

The storage space doesn’t even have to be in Point Pleasant, he said. Any space around the state that can hold up to four pallets (roughly 1,000 books per pallet) would help, perhaps in the Brick, Lakewood, Howell, or Wall areas.

BookSmiles would need access to the space every few weeks, preferably on Saturdays, so volunteers can load books into large containers and transport them to the Pennsauken warehouse.

Time is running out, though. Abrams needs to be out of the unit between now and Nov. 12.

If he does not find someone with a kind heart and ample space to store books, it will compromise BookSmiles’ mission, and he may have to pull the plug on book collections, which he does not want to do.

The fight to keep every New Jersey child reading

Once he finds a storage space to help the Kiwanis Club of Point Pleasant store books, the idea is to eventually look for collection centers, using people’s garages or low-cost storage units around the state, to collect books.

BookSmiles needs to collect all of the used books that would normally go to big box thrifts. The non-profit needs them because they can translate those books into children’s books and provide access to hundreds of thousands of children who feel poorer whenever corporate book fairs visit their schools.

“We don’t want that to ever happen. We want to make sure that every child in New Jersey grows up with books of their own, starting at infancy,” Abrams said.

If you or someone you know has ample space to help store books on behalf of BookSmiles, please email Larry Abrams.

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