(blog post expands on November 2021 newsletter) $90,000. That has been our big hairy year-end fundraising goal for the past two years, and this year, thanks to an exciting Giving Tuesday match opportunity, we'll meet that goal again! "So what's this Giving Tuesday match you mentioned?" OUR BIGGEST MATCH EVER- that's what it is! For Giving Tuesday, November 30, thanks to our partners at W&A Engineering and our very own board, Books for Keeps has a $20,000 match to help us execute a ONE-DAY ONLY capital campaign to raise $40,000 and purchase our very own box truck. You're reading that right - we want to raise $40,000 in one day. With our former partners at Scholastic no longer being able to meet our necessary price-point of $3/book and needing to raise their prices by 50% if we were to continue our partnership into 2022, the team had to come up with a new plan to serve our out-of-Athens schools while still staying on budget. (That's right - the cost of serving our Atlanta, Elberton, and Warrenton schools would increase by nearly $50,000 if we were to continue with the Scholastic model.) The solution is to purchase a truck for deliveries! Not only will this allow us the flexibility to deliver books to our Athens schools at times that work best for the schools - rather than relying on the kindness of local moving companies and the availability of vehicles that meet our needs - it also lets us make informed book purchases based on what students at our out-of-Athens schools request AND ultimately keeps the cost of serving those schools the same that it is now. "Okay I'm with you on buying a truck. But [...]
