[readermail]
Subject: Book stuff and stuff and stuff.
To: pamie@pamie.com
Pamie,
Remember me? The short girl who showed up at your performances (well, to Letters Never Sent and Call Us Crazy) with the tall guy and the…um. The tall girl? From San Diego? Your book signing! I’d been reading you since 1999 or so, and I got the lollipops? Right.[/readermail]
[readermail]
While I would love to go and see an encore performance of Letters Never Sent (and drag my posse along with me), I cannot. I will be busy, all week long, helping to put together the monster that is a Christmas parade for the city of Chula Vista. See, my brother’s the mayor here. And this year, they’re using the parade to launch the Give a Book campaign, which is going to be — if all works out well — a traveling sort of charity that collects book donations (preferably children’s books, but they’ll take anything) in different cities and then builds children’s libraries in public facilities which need them.
For this holiday season, the donations are being taken in to benefit the Polinsky Children’s Center (who provide services to children who have been physically, sexually, and or emotionally abused, medically or physically neglected, and or have no parent or guardian), Casa Seguras (which provides confidential emergency and transitional housing for domestic violence victims and their children), and the Chula Vista Library’s Literary Center.
The thing is this. Give a Book is going to be turning into an official not-for-profit in the beginning of next year, with lots of paperwork and forms with letters and numbers in their names that I am not in the loop about. It will then cease to be associated with the city of Chula Vista (at least, that is my understanding), and will begin to travel around. The next stop is tentatively Phoenix. Because it will exist only with donations and grants given to keep it afloat, this beginning drive is really important. If the books don’t come in, then the money has a tendency to go away. And while we’re confident that the elementary schools will come through with book donations from their students, we’re taking donations from anybody who wants to give them.
Guess what. I thought of you.
I know technically this isn’t for the libraries, and San Diego is already receiving books to help rebuild from the fires, but if you wouldn’t mind giving it a mention I’d be pretty happy about it, and owe you something big. Also, if we get enough books during this initial drive, they will overflow into other cities and be taken to Phoenix and then wherever Give a Book decides to stop next.
And if not, I guess I’ll get over it. And I’ll even come to your next performance. I think we’re going to make Katie bug the video store she used to work in down here to get stee’s movie, even. See? I’ll still love you.
Anyway. Here’s the address that donations are to be sent to. Honestly, it’s a long story about why they’re going to Florida, which has no good answer other than right now the drive’s mainly being held in the schools and in local businesses (you know, a box on the floor that only collects dust?) and so when I asked for an address I got the organizer’s permanent address, which gets forwarded. If this bothers you for some reason, I’ll talk to my dad about taking donations here. Remind him of his duty as father of the mayor and all.
Give a Book
8668 Navarre Parkway #360
Navarre, FL 32566
And here’s some happy links, which are just being stuck at the end of the email here because this gmail is a new-fangled thing and I haven’t tried html in it and I’m already late to call someone back and need to go.
The City of Chula Vista’s page about Give a Book
I couldn’t find a good site on Casa Seguras that wasn’t just a mention on a bigger page, so boo on them. And boo on us, because the Give a Book site is still being designed.
Anyway. As I said, I won’t hate you if you’d rather pass, and if you’ve even made it this far down the email, I’m impressed. Hope your wedding plans are going swimmingly, and we send all our luck to you two, not only for the marriage but for your careers. Can’t wait for the next book!
— Kim
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