Here’s a great testimonial from Jeff Woods, Director of the Sonoma State Community Service Program (JUMP) which oversees their Alternative Spring Breaks. They run FANTASTIC book drives every semester.
Here’s Jeff hard at work on a Spring Break trip:
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And here’s Jeff’s advice and testimonial:
“At Sonoma State University, JUMP, the community service program, started our Alternative Breaks Program right around the time that we learned about Better World Books. We had been utilizing BreakAway, and we knew we had to find a successful fundraising opportunity that could generate lots of money for our trips as we didn’t want the participants to have to pay for them entirely.
My advice to any Alternative Breaks Programs is to HOLD BOOK DRIVES EVERY SEMESTER. It’s easy and a great fundraiser. Better World Books is a great organization to work with and now Better World Books and BreakAway have partnered. It’s a win win situation for all involved.
A couple of key suggestions for you regarding book drives:
1. To get books from students, put donation boxes everywhere across your campus – places where students eat, in the residential community, in department offices, at the bookstores, major academic buildings, the student union, everywhere.
2. Ask faculty to donate books as well. They get books sent to them all the time. Faculty who are retiring, faculty who are moving offices, and faculty who are leaving your campus are all outstanding potential donors.
3. If you can, accept book donations at your office all year round. The faculty members I was talking about above may not get to cleaning out their offices until the summer.
4. Work with your campus bookstore. If you can, put donation boxes right next to the textbook buyback. When students can’t sell a book back, they will drop it in the donation box (make sure that the bookstore staff encourage students to do that).
5. If the bookstore doesn’t want a donation bin next to textbook buyback, put it out in front of the store. You’ll still get books (plus you have donation bins all across campus already).
Good Luck!
Jeff Woods
JUMP Program Coordinator
Sonoma State University
www.sonoma.edu/as/jump
