Written by: Divya Palasamudram
Erin Butterworth, Saveena Ratnasinghe, Pranali Patel, Riana Victoria, Divya Palasamudram, Sowndarya Chivukula, Ved, Jasmine Nguyen, Nithya Janapati, Manya Bhagat, and Smrithi Muthukrishnan all hosted a book drive for an organization called Book Harvest! Book Harvest is a nonprofit that provides an abundance of books and literacy support for children from birth, ensuring that children are lifelong readers and learners.
General Services’ Book Harvest drives have collected a total of 945 books! Jasmine & Nithya collected the most books through their drive, collecting an impressive amount of 308 books. Saveena and Pranali collected the second most number of books at 168 books! To learn more about all of our General Services’ Book Harvest drives, keep reading!
Why did we conduct drives?
Many General Services members shared their thoughts on what led them to start a book drive for Book Harvest. Saveena mentioned that she started her drive to help more students have equal access to resources like books. As an avid reader herself, she knows how big of a role reading is in helping children grow. Sowndarya, also an avid reader since childhood, knows that reading is a large part of growing up, she didn’t think that children should miss out on that just because they don’t have the available resources. Finally, Jasmine mentioned that as a big reader herself as well, knowing that some children do not have access to books and are not able to grow up in the same way as the children around them is heartbreaking. For these reasons, this team started their drives to further support Book Harvest’s mission.
Promotion
Erin noted that a successful way of promoting her drive was using Nextdoor. Through this app, she was able to reach many adults in her neighborhood who had extra books to give from prior teaching jobs, their children, etc.
Sowndarya and Saveena both promoted their drives through mentioning it on their neighborhood group chats as well as through handing out flyers to people walking by. Saveena’s neighborhood held a “Mini Parade” on October 31st, which Saveena used as an opportunity to hand out more flyers promoting her drive!
Obstacles
Erin mentioned that since this was her first drive, navigating how to promote it was the toughest part, but she was able to learn some valuable tips about promotion along the way! Riana added that since there are many small children in her neighborhood, many of them were still using their books. Despite that, Riana said that the benefits of hosting her drive definitely outweighed the hardships, which everyone else agreed with as well!
Tips
As a tip, Sowndarya advises to keep sending out reminders for your drive, because naturally, many people may forget to drop off their items. She also mentions to not be discouraged and to keep on going with your drive even if you are met by disappointment at first! Erin also advises to keep your audience in mind while promoting. Ask yourself if this drive is geared more towards adults or more towards teens, and promote accordingly. For example, you may want to use Nextdoor to reach adults and Instagram to promote to teens.
Conclusion and memorable moments!
Conducting projects such as this one comes with special moments and memories! Erin recollected that one of the people that responded to her Nextdoor post said that she would exceed Erin’s goal amount and be able to donate a large amount of books! Erin was super thankful for such a generous donation! A memorable moment Riana recollected was when she received a donation of over a 100 books from someone outside her neighborhood! It is amazing to see the generosity and kindness that service projects bring out in people! If you have been inspired to host your own neighborhood drive/project, go for it! General Services is here to help in any way!