So by Thursday evening, not even two days since the GLW Book Fair for Boys began, we met our goal of 100 books, blew right past it and are still going strong.
I'm totally floored.
In all honesty, in this economy, I really had no idea if we would get much of any response at all to this project. The group of boys we chose to help - and we purposely chose to help incarcerated boys - is not the most sympathetic bunch. People feel for sick kids or kids who are poor or who have just had their library blown away by a tornado or hurricane (or squished in an earthquake, or flooded by a tsunami - what a catastrophic few years we have had!) but kids in prison? Not so much.
I mean think about it - they have no library at all. Money has been spent on other things and not these kids for a reason; because it's easy to overlook them and we all know it. So I was worried; I was in fact mighty worried.
But wow. Just WOW!
So many people have commented on the site or sent emails saying the nicest things about being able to help; it's almost like tons of people have been waiting for something - for a chance to help someone they never met. And everyone is spreading the word in so many different ways - twitter and email and facebook and links in posts like this and this and this - they are all just great. It's really and truly a wonderful thing to be part of and I've learned something I'll never forget: all you have to do is try and sometimes you can change the world. It's that simple. Just look at what you can do and make it happen. In all my worry about what might go wrong I forgot that either way - that even if it was only 50 books or 25 or 10, still that would be huge for kids who had none. Either way, something good was going to happen. Just trying was going to make a good thing happen.
And now? Well now I've seen how big it can be and how much you can do and how powerful a voice that is echoed by dozens of others can become. Now, I don't see what's stopping any of us.
We had an idea, we found someone who needed our help and we let the blogosphere know. Books will be in the hands of dozens and dozens (and dozens!) of boys in just a few days. They will be reading and it's all because of what we did.
It's a beautiful day, isn't it?
P.S. The Summer Blog Blast Tour schedule will be up this weekend!
[Post pic, National Geographic Society]
May 15
2009
05:51 AM
When the Great Depression came, people were at a loss. The War was a galvanizing factor in allowing people to come together and say, "Okay. Victory gardens. We can do that. Saving fat and scrap metals. We can do that. Knitting socks for soldiers and going without stockings. We can do that." When it seems like the world as we've known it is vanishing, we very much want to put our hands on something real and meaningful to do to hold back the dark.
This is the way to light a little candle.
We can do this.