pamie.com's Annual Book Drive (AKA: The Accidental Activists)

In May of 2003, the city of Oakland announced they had lost their acquisitions budget and had resorted to creating wish lists on Amazon.com. With this entry, the pamie.com Annual Book Drive was born. By the fall of 2003, the readers of pamie.com had sent over 700 donations of books, CDs and DVDs to the Oakland Public Library system. Media attention ranged from CNN to Michael Moore. Readers became activists, launching book drives in their own communities to help their struggling library systems. We became addicted to the letters from librarians.

In 2004 our attention turned to the San Diego, where fires had destroyed over 2400 homes and another library system was struggling. We launched the book drive in June. We sent close to 500 donations, and once again spread the word that our public libraries needed attention.

Special thanks to Friends of Pamie, who held a book drive in honor of our wedding in December of 2004.

In 2005 pamie.com sponsored Kancheepuram, a tsunami-ravaged village in India. In less than three weeks we sent every child in Kancheepuram back to school with all of the supplies needed. That's $11718. 2400 children were supplied with backpacks, pencils, books and uniforms, all because of a little help from the kind-hearted people of the Internet.

In 2006 we got fancified. Please check out the Dewey Donation System.

The 2006 drive sponsored Harrison County, Mississippi, an area ravaged by Katrina. They lost over 40,000 items in their collections, (not to mention a few branches of their library system). In just two months' time, thanks to how easy Dewey makes it to give, we sent over 1855 books, DVDs and CDs, and almost $3000 in cash.

Thanks to everybody who has ever sent a book, dropped some cash or spread the word. Even one book makes an enormous difference.