Book Fair

Each year, the Book Fair Foundation picks three to five organizations to share in the net profits from the Book Fair. In 2015, we had four: House of Bread Community Kitchen, Human Race Theatre Co., Humane Society of Greater Dayton and Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm.

For 2016, we are looking for three Dayton area non-profits to be our beneficiaries for the Book sale. It’s easy to apply– simply write us a letter postmarked no later than January 9, 2016 detailing the merits of your organization. The letter should be sent to the Book Fair Foundation, Inc., 2181 Embury Park Road, Dayton, OH 45402. The board will meet over the weekend of January 16th, and the three groups chosen will be announced Tuesday, January 19th.

The letter can also be sent via email to [email protected]

There are a couple of things to keep in mind. We’d like to keep the money in our own community– the Greater Dayton area. (And yes, that would include Springfield, Middletown, Tipp City– but Cincinnati and Columbus are beyond our reach.)

We really would like the relationship between us and the recipients to be something of a partnership. We are a small non-profit ourselves, staffed entirely by volunteers. If your group can share some volunteers to help us during roundups, or at the sale or at the loft, that would be marvelous.

One of the things that happened when we separated from Planned Parenthood is that we lost a particular kind of customer– those people who came to buy books because they knew the money would benefit something they cared about. If you can help promote the Book Fair through your own organization, it will really help build sales. (To clarify, we are not asking that you spend money on this– free publicity is great– emails, newsletters, Facebook pages and the like.)

If you have a place for a Book Collection barrel, we’d love that. (We come and collect the books throughout the year.) Every barrel has a poster which lists information about the Fair and its beneficiaries. We will also mention your group in every print ad, on our website, Facebook page, bookmarks, on the radio and in television appearances. So there’s a little extra publicity for you too.

We are exploring the possibility of an Irish-themed evening sometime in March to help with overhead costs– tentatively we’re calling it “St. Patrick’s Festival of the Book.” If it happens that you have event space you’d be willing to share for that one evening, please let us know.

All of that said, we understand that there are some fantastic non-profits in the Dayton area doing very, very important work who don’t have space, time, money, or volunteers to spare. Send us an application anyway.

We hope to provide grants to a broad spectrum of groups working in the area of arts, education, conservation, environment, preservation, literacy, and social welfare– but we will consider any group that applies, provided that organization is registered with the state, has an IRS non-profit designation and is located within the geographical area we aim to serve.

If you have questions, feel free to send an inquiry through this page, by email ([email protected]) or leave a message at the office and we will call you back. Our number is (937) 999-4491.

This article submitted by the Book Fair Foundation.