By Sukhmani Batra, Rachel Ocampo, Rajvir Dhaliwal, Courier Staff Writers
The East Bay Children’s Book Project, a program that provides free books to children in low-income households in Oakland, is now on the verge of closing.
The program began when Amy Katz, the current head, and a group of retired teachers began by distributing the books they had collected for their class libraries over the years at the Grand Lake Neighborhood Center, and the program began its road to success from there.
As the program gained popularity, it began to receive donations from local bookstores and community members.
By 2009, the program had expanded vigorously and eventually became too big. It relocated several times, before settling at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in West Oakland.
Since 2005, the program has remained a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children, and has distributed over a million books total. But with soaring building rental costs, nonprofits are increasingly being displaced all across Oakland.
Katz received a notice in July by the Bethlehem Lutheran officials saying that they had three months to find another place. The officials didn’t give Katz a reason on why they were discontinuing the lease.
Katz explained that she has considered over 20 possible places to move, but hasn’t been able to find an affordable location that has enough space for upwards of 20,000 books. With its monthly donations, the program can afford to pay about only $1 per square foot.
Despite the staff’s best efforts to find a new home, the East Bay Children’s Book Project is set to close on October 26. The program will be temporarily closed, and is scheduled to reopen in a few months at the latest.\
Pastor Linda Boston, who initially led the effort to secure space for the program at Bethlehem Lutheran, said that the “East Bay Children’s Book Project is about providing children in the surrounding community a better future in an interview with the East Bay Express.”
When asked about her views about the closing of the program, she said “It would be a big loss to the children of Oakland and the city of Oakland if the project is no longer there.” She further explained, “For a kid to have their own free book handed to them that doesn’t have somebody else’s name in it, somebody’s else’s scribbling in it –– that’s a big deal.”
