Books For Soldiers is an organization that helps get books out to the men and women serving in the military. Regardless of where these men and women are serving and regardless of our personal beliefs on any war, each day they risk their lives with little thanks. They endure a lot of lonely times, a lot of scary times, and, between missions, dull monotony. Sending military members books to read not only takes their mind off the dangers for a little while, it also lets them know that someone back home cares.
Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Storm Williams, founder of Books For Soldiers. Storm has graciously taken time from her busy schedule to answer a few questions for me.
1. What prompted the idea for this organization?
During the first Gulf War, several of my friends from school were in the reserves and were activated to fight the Iraqis. CNN reported that once the soldiers were deployed, they were faced with massive downtime and were restricted to their base due to the travel limitations set by the Saudi government.
I am a voracious reader and at the beginning of the Gulf War, I had a closet full of paperback books. Books that were not being used. So instead of selling them at the used bookstore, I packed them up in small care packages and sent them out to my deployed friends, who then passed them out at the base they were on.
Within a few weeks, I ran out of books . I then began guilting friends and family members began donating their paperback books and in the end, over 1000 books were sent to the Gulf. After the war, we received many thank-you notes from soldiers who got one of our books. Unless it was time for them to fly back home, mail-call days were one of the most anticipated events of deployment.
When the next Gulf War started in 2002, I knew I wanted to do the same thing, but I needed help, so I designed and launched BooksForSoldiers.com, a self-serve site with thousands of volunteers all sending books to deployed US troops.
2. How long have you been operating?
We started on March 1st, 2003.
3. Can you tell us briefly how the organization works?
Soldiers come to our website (we also operate CollegeForSoldiers.com and BiblesForSoldiers.org), fill out the request form on the front page. The request then gets added to our database by one of our over-worked moderators. From there, one of our thousands of volunteers will check to see if they have that title and they will then send it directly to a soldier.
4. Do the books sent need to be brand new?
We ask that any item sent to a soldier be “gently used.”
5. Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
If any of your readers know anyone in the US military, please tell them about BooksForSoldiers.com. And if they want to send books to the troops, we are always looking for more volunteers!
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To learn more about Books For Soldiers and/or to become a volunteer, go to www.BooksForSoldiers.com. You’ll find all the guidelines for joining and mailing, as well as a FAQ page to answer any and all questions you might have. You can also find Books for Soldiers on Facebook and Twitter.
Tags: book donations, Books For Soldiers, free books for military
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