The Books to Benefit June Sale is in progress at 360 Wylie Dr. in Normal and continues through Saturday, June 4 until 5p.m. The Interstate Center provides plenty of space for this event. This isn’t your typical tent sale. The books are organized as well as you will find at any book store making selection easy. The event supports local literacy programs.
Cities 92.9 spoke with Michelle Klatt, President and CFO of Books to Benefit who described the group and event as follows, “We are entirely run by volunteers. We sell the ‘Cream of the Top” books. We recycle anything that needs to be recycled and the rest goes to a place called Discovered to find new homes. We charge $2 for hardbacks and 50 cents for children’s books and paperback books.”
Klatt also provided these details regarding the beneficiaries of the event as follows, “We support Star Literacy which is for adults who need to learn to read English either as a second language or just to learn to read. And we also support Youthbuild McLean County Literacy of Youth Program.”
Books to Benefit also provides two $500 scholarships to Heartland Community College students to help them purchase books.
The event includes something you might not expect to find at a sale like this, collectable books.
Again Klatt explains, “We also take books that come in that are collectable and we have a person here, who is Mary Ryder, and she will find a home for that book where it can be seen and where it belongs in a collection. So we have a map. She’s got them in probably about thirty states now; different universities , different collectable places. She will hunt down a place where this book belongs. Despite the condition, a lot of people at universities don’t have some of these books that we get in. They are just rare treasures. And we want them to be seen by future generations. We want to make sure that the printed word keeps going on.”
At the sale you will also find a whole room of vintage books and a whole room of children’s vintage books
Don’t worry about the books running out. Books to Benefit has more than 20,000 for sale.
This bibliophile couldn’t resist a Clancy novel and classics by Dumas, Dickens, Faulkner, Lewis and Scott. You won’t be able to resist the temptation either. Go ahead, get out of the house this weekend and go visit Books to Benefit. The prices are economical and the proceeds support great causes.
