Project Cicero: Librarians Doing Fabulous Work

I get a lot of books.  Quite a few.  And often I have no way of using them all.  Many are added to the library system, sure, but a number of books sit on a cart in our backroom, waiting.  Often these books are fabulous, but we have no immediate use for them ourselves.  Enter Project Cicero.  They describe themselves as, "an annual non-profit book drive designed to create – or supplement – school and classroom libraries for children in under-resourced New York City public schools."

Now Project Cicero needs help from local librarians.  From Ingrid Henny:

Monday, February 9, 2009 at 12:21pm

Feeling crummy and helpless about the current NYC budget cuts?

Come volunteer for Project Cicero, a non-profit that gets new and like-new books to NYC schools in need.

I volunteered last year, and it was amazing to watch NYC teachers be able to choose books for their classrooms. Many of them were thrilled just to get a new dictionary or thesaurus.

I’ll be woman-ing the Central sorting station on the 7th and 8th.

It really helps to have librarian volunteers there, as they are the only ones who have the weeding and sorting skills needed to get the job done.

Here’s the details:

Please join us at Project Cicero’s annual book drive to be held at the Hotel Pennsylvania on March 6-8. Project Cicero (www.projectcicero.org) is a non-profit book drive that is designed to help create, or supplement, school and classroom libraries for children in under-resourced New York City public schools. Now in its ninth year, Project Cicero has distributed more than 1,150,000 new and gently used books to 6,500 New York City classroom and school libraries, reaching 250,000 students. Project Cicero solicits donations from individuals and more than 100 independent, public, and parochial schools each year, and has received generous contributions from First Book, National Book Bank, and book publishers.

Each year, hundreds of students, parents, librarians and teachers volunteer in all aspects of collecting, sorting and distributing the books. This year, volunteers are invited to join us the following times:

Friday, March 6, 4-8 p.m. (pizza and cake served this evening)
Saturday, March 7, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday, March 8, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

To participate in this extraordinary event, please email info@projectcicero the date and time you would like to attend.

Thank you for your support!
Carrie Silberman, Project Cicero Executive Committee

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