Bookmarks

When you think about your impact in our community this giving season, I hope you will consider a gift to Bookmarks!

Support the Bookmarks Community Giving Tuesday next week on December 3! Last year, Bookmarks: 📚 donated 12,500 books to schools & community groups. That's 35 books per day, all year! 🙋♀️ hosted 66 authors in visits to schools, impacting 9,500 students. Almost 2 school visits every week of the school year! 📅 hosted 110 free events for the community, the largest being the Bookmarks Festival with 13,000 attendees. An average of nine events per month!  🫶 collaborated with 120 schools & community organizations. That's 10 collaborations per month! Learn more about how to support our mission and more in the article below!

We thank Bookmarks for allowing us to join in celebrating powerful voices that uplift ideas and stories that align with our organizational values. Hear more from Trust President Dr. Laura Gerald, and learn more about this past weekend’s panel that featured Stacey Abrams and Zaila Avant-garde. https://bit.ly/3zGxD4O

We are inviting community to join us as we kick off this years Girls Rising Expo with a conversation between NY Times Best Selling Author, Zaila Avant-garde and our Executive Director, Joy Nelson-Thomas. You will also get the chance to meet Zaila and purchase a signed copy of her book, It's Not Bragging If It's True. This event is FREE to attend, but we do ask that people register in advance at https://lnkd.in/eS3jgS66 Thanks to Bookmarks, you can pre-order this or another one of Zaila's books at a discount price by using the code "LEAD24" at https://lnkd.in/ectGvgMr now through October 18th. #ChangeMakersInTheMaking #girlsrisingexpo #changemakers #leadgirlsofnc #changeagirl #changeacommunity #changetheworld #NYTimesBestSeller #YoungAuthor #MeettheAuthor

Books banned across the United States hit a record high in the 2023-2024 school year. Books that address race, gender, and queerness are most frequently in the crosshairs. As a lover of books, academic freedom, and democracy, this news hits hard. It’s a stark reminder of how vital it is to defend the freedom to learn. To that end, MCF supported our partners at Haymarket Books and Kaepernick Publishing to create a powerful book last year called OUR HISTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTRABAND: IN DEFENSE OF BLACK STUDIES edited by Colin Kaepernick and two MCF Freedom Scholars: Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley and Dr. keeanga-yamahtta taylor. This year, we’re partnering with Bookmarks to celebrate the book and bring Dr. Kelley and Dr. Taylor to the 2024 Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This festival has grown into the largest annual book festival in the Carolinas and I’m so proud of the effort to feature Our History Has Always Been Contraband and help get this book out as widely as possible so it can serve as a resource to all those working to ensure the accurate teaching of Black history in the States. Check out the complete festival lineup at the link in the comments, and get your ✨free✨ download of OUR HISTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTRABAND at: CaseyGrants.org/FreeBook.

Spending some time this afternoon with Carmen Rojas (Marguerite Casey Foundation) and Stacey Abrams- thanks to Bookmarks for bringing exceptional folks to our community!

More than 40 million people in the United States are struggling to survive the economic violence of poverty. For context, that is more people than the size of the entire population of Canada. We have become a nation of unprecedented economic inequality, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Best-selling author Mathew Desmond reminds us that the solutions to end poverty exist *right now* and we could enact them today if we had the political will to do so. For our beloved MCF community in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area, join MCF for a very special event at Bookmarks in partnership with Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, the The Winston-Salem Foundation, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Save your seat for this free event at the link below.

On Wednesday, we had the amazing opportunity to host 60 K-5 students from Cook Literacy Model School for a field trip to the bookstore. With the support from Garner Foods, each student was able to pick out three books for their personal libraries as well as receive a copy of A IS FOR BEE! The students enjoyed snacks and a story time with Ellen Heck, the author of A IS FOR BEE. Bookmarks loves hosting field trips because students can choose the books they want based on their interests, which makes them excited to own and read their books at home. Many students picked out books in Spanish to share with their siblings at home. Also, about 95% of the students that joined us shared that this was their first time in a bookstore. Thank you Garner Foods for their support of this field trip. Thank you to our volunteers who joined us in helping the students pick out their books. Lastly, thank you to our community for your donations that allow us to increase access to books in Winston-Salem!

I love books 📚and I love enriching our children. Yesterday a passion project came to life with the support of Bookmarks and the Winston-Salem Chapter of Jack and Jill of America. We kicked off Black History Month in true Jack and Jill style with a signature event- My Voice, My Story- an opportunity to share with young people in our community the importance of black and brown voices in literature, and how young people are able to amplify their voices in a way that is authentic and brings power to their narrative- the narrative that they can control. Judy Allen Dodson and Jorge Redmond- NC based authors- spent the day with us reading from their works, sharing their wisdom and leading a writing workshop for our Teens and Tweens. We also were privileged to have Ms. Peggy Moore (also a JnJ mom!) join us with Delta Arts Center to share the importance of quilt making to telling and preserving Black stories. We also donated books to Kimberly Park Elementary School, to further support representative choices in their library! Special thanks to our chapter moms and children for showing up, leading parts of the program, reading stories and facilitating panel discussions! Likewise, the partnership with Bookmarks was invaluable- and as a proud board member and community member, I couldn’t be more excited. For the children- Long Live Jack and Jill! 🩷💙🩷💙 #wsjjoa #JJOA #longlivejackandjill #forthechildren

Thank you Bookmarks and Winston-Salem State University for hosting a wonderful evening! Ayesha Rascoe has collected our unique experiences in her book #HBCUMade. We reflected, laughed and shared our pride 🫶🏾#Ramily #Howard #Hampton #FAMU #Dillard #MorganState #Spelman #Morehouse #Southern #Talladega #TennesseeState #HBCUPride