Transcript:
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Brad Caruso:
Welcome to Civic Warriors, brought to you by Withum. On this podcast, we bring the conversation to you, sharing, engaging stories that motivate and build consensus in the nonprofit community. This podcast is about the innovators, the leaders on the front lines of adversity, guiding lights in the nonprofit industry affecting change. And through their stories, we can all join forces to become civic warriors. Hey, warriors. Welcome to today’s episode of Civic Warriors, brought to you by Withum. I’m your host, Brad Caruso, leader of Withum’s, not-for-profit practice. Our guest today, Larry Abrams, founder of BookSmiles, a 501c3, not-for-profit organization that is distributing new and gently used children’s books to children and families living in underserved communities. The BookSmiles mission is research shows that early literacy sets the stage for a child’s future success by promoting academic achievement, reduce grade retention, higher graduation rates, and enhance productivity.
Brad Caruso:
Adult life, since its inception, BookSmiles, is promoted literacy and the joy of reading by distributing more than 1.7 million books to Philadelphia, New Jersey children and others who need them the most. By diverting these used children books from going to landfills, BookSmiles provides millions of books With new life starting in infancy, children living in book deserts can build robust libraries of their own inviting academic success. What I loved about learning about BookSmiles is that they are unique in their approach. Uh, and many of you probably not have not heard of a book bank before. There’s other types, you know, you’ve heard of food banks and other things, but obviously reading and education is super important to our children in the future. And current times, Larry’s bringing life to something all children should have access to. Uh, having two children, myself, I know the power of reading and learning to read, and the first step in that is access to books. With that being said, Larry, welcome to the show.
Larry Abrams:
Well, it’s so good to be here, Brad.
Brad Caruso:
So, with that said, um, how did, how did you generate the idea, uh, to be the founder of BookSmiles? What, what was the catalyst behind it?
Larry Abrams:
BookSmiles comes from a place of me being a career teacher, and towards the end of my teaching career, I, I had a conversation with one of my high school seniors, and she was a teen mom, and she had a baby at home, a little over a year old. And one day I asked her, what are you reading to your baby? And she replied, well, I’m not really reading to her, Mr. Abrams. And I said, why aren’t you reading to her? And she said, well, she’s too little to understand. And, and then I went into parent to parent mode with my 17-year-old student and said, look, you know, when I read to my kids, they were out of the womb. And, uh, when my daughter was a year and a half old, she was kind of reading back to me. She remembered the stories, and then my student wistfully looked at me and said, Mr. Abrams, that’s very nice, but we don’t do that in my culture. So I’m a high school English teacher, and my student just told me this, where do I go? I wasn’t about to preach to her. I had to go home. I had to think about it. I had to process this. And I decided to do a book drive. And I put out a very simple call on Facebook and said, look, I’m collecting books. I had long since donated my children’s books to the library, and I said, look, I’m collecting children’s books I wanna distribute to, uh, students in my district, which by the way, is about an 85. It was an 85% free and reduced lunch district. And the response was overwhelming. I got so many books just pouring into my front porch. So not only was I able to give to my student, but I was able to give to other moms in my school. I was able to give to the elementary school kids across the way. And I felt so good doing it. And finally, Brad, I’ve been in touch with my student and she says that her daughter is a reader. She loves language arts, she is smart, and she is going places. And that is the proof this confirms that it is important, as you said, to give people access, to give parents access.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. And you just changed one. And, you know, that was, that’s the catalyst. But obviously the, the number of lives you changed just, just by this idea, I think is, is phenomenal. And kind of building on that, you know, what’s a book bank and describe, describe your, uh, facility. I know our first meeting, we, uh, you showed us around on, on the FaceTime, you know, can you, can you talk a little about that?
Larry Abrams:
Okay. So kind of like Ray Crock in the early fifties, no one had really heard of McDonald’s before or fast food. I am pleased to tell you, uh, and your audience what a book bank is. And like a food bank, a book bank is a facility, often warehouse size, which is what the BookSmiles book bank is. We’re 4,300 square feet and we collect hundreds of thousands of books every quarter. And we sort them, we make sure that only the best are, uh, boxed and distributed to the teachers, to the nonprofit partners, to anyone else who can help us irrigate book deserts. Uh, the books really are free. You don’t have to pay to get the books. What you have to do, though, is find children who really need these. You need to be able to find children who don’t receive books as gifts. And if you can help get them into the hands of these precious children on a massive scale as Share Food Philadelphia is doing this, Phil Abundance is about to do, to noted food banks, then you really do need to talk to us.
Brad Caruso:
Love that. Talk about what makes your operation unique. You described a few things to me, and I think there are so many things that you do. Well talk a little bit more about, uh, what makes your operation unique?
Larry Abrams:
Okay, so I have a confession. Uh, I am a hopeless creative <laugh>. And, uh, in the morning time, my brain is a furnace and I love, uh, innovating and making stuff up. That’s the stuff that propelled me as a teacher. So we put a lot of that stuff into BookSmiles. And being unique is, is very, very important to us. So what makes us unique first is, uh, the way that we collect books. So I started this, uh, kind of bin program where we’ll take, uh, kind of mundane toter bin, the kind that are normally used for trash. We’ll paint these things with bright colors and we’ll put our logo on it and we’ll install them in high-end places where there are families, book families that go by. And we make it kind of a fun way for families to deposit bags of books. We have a bin boss, I can’t do it all alone.
Larry Abrams:
So we have bin bosses, uh, check in on the bins and they harvest the books. ’cause we irrigate book deserts. I like to use farming language, and we’re planting seeds. And what they do is they take the books back to, uh, the book bank, and then we distribute them to kids who really need them. So that’s one way that we are unique. Another way that we’re unique is that we also take grownup books, and we have a way of going into estates when people are downsizing. When a book lover passes away, where do their books go? Well, rather than call up, you know, like the Junk guys or you know, estate cleanouts, people are calling us. And I tell people that we’re able to translate their books into revenue to help us meet our expenses. And it’s always fun engaging people on that level. We are also are unique in that we purchased a 16 foot box truck. So with that said, we’re able to go to schools all across New Jersey, all across, uh, the Philadelphia area and on into the mainline. And we’re able to collect hundreds of thousands of books that, uh, children, uh, collect during, uh, their school book drives. So there you go.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. And, and I think that, um, you know, kind of leads into the next, uh, you know, you’re, you’re fulfilling a need that that wasn’t traditionally there or that might have been lacking, especially in book deserts and different locations that may not have, uh, direct access, may not have a library, may not be able to get to a library, whatever it might be. Um, you know, and, and part of the reason probably why you started this, but why do you feel that there was a, uh, or, or what, what did have you identified, I guess, that, that says that there is such a, like a lack of access or distribution of these books? How prevalent is this, I guess, when you, when you think about people in need of reading materials?
Larry Abrams:
Okay, so, uh, again, this is coming from a place of years spent teaching kids who live at or below the poverty line. I’ve taught foster kids. I’ve taught kids who have grown up really hard. I don’t worry about that stuff because I can’t change that stuff. What I can change, what we can change is the geography of, of what a child’s house looks like. We want to make sure that the books are installed in the rooms into the baby’s rooms. And when that happens, the child will look at books as they will look at toys and they will pick them up. And if they’re lucky in some families, they get read to, if not by parents, then maybe brothers and sisters who go home with the books. The point is, I don’t let poverty serve as an excuse to access. We are innovatively installing libraries into the homes of kids living in book deserts, period. And we want one day for them to become book donors themselves.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. And paying it forward is certainly, um, you know, that’s a significant part of the model. You’re paying it forward, and then families there down the line will pay it forward. I can completely resonate having a five and a 7-year-old, knowing that when we’re not reading to them, there’s a lot of distractions in life. And, you know, it is a very conscious effort that that takes place to do that. But once they catch on, you see the spark in their eye of it catching on, and then all of a sudden they’re like, dad, can you read this to me? You’re like, sure. And then brothers reading to sister. And then, you know, my, my daughter now teaches her stuffed animals in her education class that she teaches at the age five <laugh>. And, uh, but it, it, it, it’s, it, it takes that catalyst and, and obviously one of those catalyst is you need to have books and have them in the room so they can see them, and so they can access them and they can go off the shelf and say, daddy, read this book to me. I don’t know what it says. Um, and you also then, then, you know, that secondary effort is, is if someone can, can help read it. It, it definitely brings it home. But it’s a, it’s a, it’s an everyday thing. I will say that, you know, my kids definitely struggle a little bit with reading, just if we are not actively doing it. And as you said, people get busy. I, you know, there are times where I’m like, man, I really wish I did more of that.
Larry Abrams:
But when we make it a habit, we become our habits. And so if you condition kids even before the age of five, and they go to kindergarten, reading ready, you know, that is set, that is important. And that’s what I really want to, uh, teach others. Again, I’m a career teacher and I wanna teach others to share their book wealth. Our kids are good. Like you, I raised two kids. They always had great reading scores and, you know, they certainly had excellent teachers, but they had a good foundation at home. And that is the secret sauce right there.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. Without question. And, and, um, you know, I lo I love what you’re doing and, and bringing this idea to light, because it is not an often talked about topic, but the most important thing that you do is, is teaching your kids to read. ’cause a lot of other things spawn from there. And a lot of other development activities go from there. And the earlier that that happens, the better. And, and just the, the bonding moment of the reading, I think is the other, you know, aspect of that. I, I, I never really put any thought to it until it happened to me. You know, I never really thought like, oh, I’m gonna read to my, my kids when they’re, you know, you just thought it just happens. And, and, and to some degree it does. But, uh, that was a, that was definitely a great moment.
Brad Caruso:
And now I, I look forward to it. Like, I love it. My daughter’s like, you know, my son’s like, Hey, read this to me. I’m like, sure. Love to, like, I love doing that. So talk Larry. Talk to us about the numbers. Um, you know, I love hearing, I’m an accountant, so I love hearing about statistics. And when you think about the, the volume, uh, of books you’re handling, ’cause I, it’s an impressive number. When you, when you think about the number of books you’ve distributed, you know, what, what does that flow look like? How many, how many books do you, do you, you know, have you brought in? How many have you distributed? What, what does that look like?
Larry Abrams:
So, since I started BookSmiles in 2019, I started working out of my garage. And back then I was moving approximately 5,000 books per month. Uh, that translates to about two pallets worth. We now are moving, uh, between 60 and 85,000 books a month here in the book bank. That is, uh, anywhere between 30 and 40 pallets worth of books. Uh, since we started, we have distributed nearly 2 million books because those numbers really add up. I, I was a high school English teacher, and, uh, these are numbers that I’m not afraid of. Um, I like to celebrate them. I like looking at them. Uh, also numbers, uh, that make us unique is that we have very low costs to distribute these books. Uh, it costs approximately 40 cents for us to harvest our books to sort them. We have a lot of volunteers come by. That’s how I keep costs down.
Larry Abrams:
And volunteering at the book bank is a joyous thing. We package them and then distribute them. So on average, uh, the book costs, after all the salaries are paid, and, uh, the rent, uh, is only 40 cents per book. So when somebody donates, uh, a thousand dollars to BookSmiles, well, that enables us to move a whole lot of books. We generally avoid buying them new unless they are diverse or, uh, we love buying, uh, new Spanish, uh, bilingual books. Those are rarely donated. But really 99% of the books that we donate are what we call upcycled books that are diverted from a certain death, uh, in the incinerator at the pulpers, uh, in in landfills. We want to get these books into kids’ hands. Do you have more questions about numbers?
Brad Caruso:
What’s the most common book that comes through the facility?
Larry Abrams:
Uh, the most common type of book is, uh, is what we call Picture Books. So we, uh, categorize Baby Board. That’s first category. Picture Books is the second easy chapter books are the third. It’s Geronimo Stilton, Junie B Jones. Then we have harder chapter books. Um, a lot more words on the page, but they’re still for kids who are innocent. And then we have Upper Middle High School. And, uh, oftentimes, uh, that includes like some swearing, some violence sometimes, you know, these are, uh, you know, like Harry Potter, you know, these are books with intense themes. The most common types of books that we get donated are the picture books. And we love, love, love when people donate the baby board books, uh, we can’t get enough of those. And the, and the demand is very high
Brad Caruso:
Important for our audience listening, you know, I obviously, it’s, important to know what’s needed out there, and I think that’s important that you highlight that. Uh, Larry, what’s your favorite children’s book?
Larry Abrams:
I, I can’t, it’s kind of like children. I can’t think of one, but, uh, I have been asked this question before in the books that I loved when I was a kid. I, I loved Curious George. I loved Harold and The Purple Crayon. I loved Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel. Never got tired of that. And I used to watch Captain Kangaroo when I was a kid in the seventies, and I loved it when Captain Kangaroo read and then the next generation came on. Your Generation is Reading Rainbow with LaVar Burton. I was all grown up then, but I love when Captain
Kangaroo read.
Brad Caruso:
Awesome, awesome. <laugh>. Um, you know, earlier on when, um, when you talked about, you know, the, the beginning of, of BookSmiles, you know, you obviously, uh, you know, told a, a a, you know, personal story. Any other stories you could share that you’d be willing to share on, on impact you’ve had coming more to recent, uh, recent times? Obviously, you know, distributing nearly 2 million books has has a significant impact. But, um, you know, from, from what you’ve seen and, and heard, and I’m sure people are vocal about thanking you for the, uh, for the efforts. But, but any, any recent stories you’d be you’d like to share?
Larry Abrams:
Yeah, you know what I’m thinking of one that happened just last Friday. I hadn’t seen this woman in, uh, a number of years. She runs a nonprofit called, uh, the No Breaks Project. Uh, she does a lot of her work out of Camden. Uh, but I hadn’t seen her in a few years. And she was back, uh, here in the new book bank kind of looking around thinking of getting involved. And she told me that, Oh the Places You’ll Go was a book that really turned her entire life around. And it got her serious about reading. And Little did I know then that that was her favorite book, but I remember giving her a whole stack of, Oh the Places You’ll Go, I actually pull those from the general donations ’cause like, that is my thing. And I love stacking them up and then periodically giving them away and a raffle to educators who will follow us on social media. But anyway, Tom Mitchell told me just how much that meant to her and how she was able to continue to spread light sharing her favorite book among the kids that she serves. And it got pretty emotional. And, you know, that’s just one story. Uh, but I, I have hundreds.
Brad Caruso:
I love hearing them. You mentioned you’re a heavily volunteer run organization in the sense that, you know, it obviously, um, takes a lot of effort to sort books to categorize and distribute them. When you think about BookSmiles itself, what help do you need from the public? And, and I guess how, how does, how does the, how do you interact with the public when it comes to the collection of books and the, and the distribution, you know, what, what areas do you feel that, that the organization would benefit from help from others?
Larry Abrams:
So, uh, certainly small donations are great when people, uh, find one of our book bins and we have, uh, them on the main line. We have them in South Jersey, and we have a couple in Princeton, and we even have a couple in North Jersey. It’s a very big state. So when people go onto our website, BookSmiles.org and, uh, look for ways to, uh, put their books into one of our donation bins with a, you know, all bagged up, we really appreciate that when people mail them to us and our address is on our website, we have gotten cartons of books from all over the country, cartons of great children’s books. It’s only 20 bucks to put your books into a box and send it to us, which is great. We have, uh, a BookSmiles ambassador program, and this is where you wanna knock it up a notch.
Larry Abrams:
And we have a couple, uh, teen volunteers, uh, and older volunteers, ’cause older people can do this well, who get this, they dedicate a portion of their garage, they get onto social media and they announce far and wide that they are collecting massive amounts of children’s books. The books then funnel into their garage, much as it did in my garage back in 2017 and 18. And when they get a critical amount of books in one of our large, uh, cardboard shipping containers, we will then dispatch the truck and we will pick up three, four, 5,000 books at a time. That’s what I need. I need people to go onto our website and realize that books are a precious commodity and we need help collecting these beautiful children’s books. That’s how they can help.
Brad Caruso:
Love it. And you mentioned, um, you know, making a donation to the organization. Best place to do that is on your website.
Larry Abrams:
That is absolutely true. Listen, I am, uh, a retired high school English teacher. I’m not a professional fundraiser. I am convincing people to donate to our cause and we are able to sustain ourselves. But to take it to the next level, to eventually open a book bank in Philly, making it a big book bank that is able to distribute 2 million books in one year and not seven years as it’s taken us now, that is the dream, that is the goal. So we’re always looking for people who will invest in us, uh, people who believe in philanthropy, book lovers who really get us. So if you know of anybody who can be a generous funder to one of the few book banks in the nation, uh, please give me, uh, an email, [email protected].
Brad Caruso:
Love it. You mentioned a couple of social media sources that, uh, that you operate on. You’re on Facebook, uh, predominantly or on a few others.
Larry Abrams:
I am on Facebook. Uh, Facebook really, uh, helped our start. I joined Facebook in 2007 or oh eight, uh, like a lot of people did who are my age. So we have a very robust presence on Facebook. Uh, but we also, uh, have a very, and we’re about 5,700 followers, and we’re about 3000 followers on Instagram. And we’re, uh, building a a TikTok base. And I have plans to create a YouTube channel as well, because we really have this beautiful formula that is so easy to replicate. People can start this in Detroit, people can start it in, you know, Portland, you know, we need more book banks because book banks will then get the books into the hands of kids who really need them.
Brad Caruso:
Yeah. Which, which obviously is the over overrunning goal that, uh, that you’re bringing to light here and, and, and being so gracious to share with everyone. You’ve been around for a little over five years. Where do you wanna take BookSmiles in the next five years?
Larry Abrams:
So within the next five years, uh, we want to, uh, certainly remain in South Jersey, but opening that Philly book bank is very, very important. There is so much work to be done in Philadelphia, so many, uh, kids who need books. So that’s one way to do it. The other goal that I have is to make this almost like a, a default kind of thing, where if people have children’s books by getting our brand out there, they’re going to get the books to the BookSmiles, book banks and book bank, and not the other big box thrifts. We need not just a few people collecting books in their garage as we have now. We need dozens of people collecting books in their garage, much like, uh, the Girl Scouts have cookie moms. Well, listen, let us into your garage for a little bit, collect books and you’ll experience this great joy.
Larry Abrams:
I’m also interested in, uh, opening up a book bank in North Jersey because, to tell you the truth, we have people driving down an hour and a half, two hours to come to the book bank in South Jersey. And that’s just, that’s ridiculous. I don’t want people to be able to do this. I want to be able to give them a beautiful product up in North Jersey. And finally, the other hope is that other people consider who love books and love the idea of irrigating book deserts will follow our model and create book banks all across the nation. But to address your question, I’m <laugh>, I’m not smart enough to grow it nationally like that, like with a brand or franchise BookSmiles. We have so much work to do right here in the Philadelphia and New Jersey region.
Brad Caruso:
I’m not so sure. I think, I think you’re very intelligent and I think you’ve created a model that others are gonna model after. And whether that’s you being the one having a facility in another place, or someone else says, you know, Larry, I I wanna do that too. What can I learn from you? And they’ll listen to this and they’ll say, I’m gonna start my own. That’s impact. And I think that’s where the not-for-profit community comes in. Um, and, and your dedication, time, effort, ideas, knowledge, uh, and, and all the books that you’ve, you’ve, uh, already turned around are gonna make a huge impact and already have and, and will continue to do that. So, you know, I wouldn’t sell yourself short because I think you, you know, this idea and, and, uh, you’ve already put it in practice. It’s, it’s a known model. It works.
Brad Caruso:
Um, you know, you have many, as you said, hundreds of impact stories. Um, you know, that’s what this is all about. And I think, you know, I I, I appreciate hearing more about what you do. I appreciate hearing more about how you’re approaching this. And, and honestly, it’s, it’s from a, it’s from a point of care, and it’s from a point of, you know, you wanting to see the best for the next generation. So thank you so much for being here and sharing your story, Larry. It’s, it’s, uh, phenomenal to hear it. And, uh, you know, I love, I loved learning about your operation.
Larry Abrams:
Well, today was a pleasure and delight talking to you, Brad. Thank you for allowing me to open my mic and, uh, share this. And thank you for amplifying our mission. And, uh, I hope to, uh, eventually meet you face to face one day.
Brad Caruso:
Without question. And Warriors, thank you for listening. Appreciate your time today. And, and as you’ve heard in this episode, books, literacy, education are so integral to, uh, our future generations and providing access to those that wouldn’t otherwise have it providing, uh, the gift of reading to the next generation of children is so important to driving our society forward and giving people a better life. Hear Larry’s story, check out their website, donate if you can. And, and really just think about this episode. Think about the impact that Larry’s having and the impact you could have by making a donation of books that are probably just collecting dust on a bookshelf that someone else could enjoy. So don’t take it lightly and, and definitely, uh, check out their website, check out what they do. Uh, but thank you so much Larry. And, uh, for all you listeners out there, subscribe and meet us right back here for another episode of Withum’s Civic Warrior in the near future.
