Customers dropped off books for children at a donation bin at Kepler's Books and Magazines in Menlo Park this summer. Courtesy Brittany Caine/Kepler's.
This summer, shoppers at Keplers Books in Menlo Park donated around 1,000 books to benefit youth in Santa Clara County Juvenile and Family Court.
The book drive, which ran from June to the end of August, encouraged shoppers to donate books that were either lightly used or bought new at Keplers, located at 1010 El Camino Real. From there, they went to a bookshelf in Santa Clara County Family Court in San Jose where they are offered for free to children and teens in Family Court and Juvenile Court.
Steve Preminger, the director of the Santa Clara County Office of Strategic and Intergovernmental Affairs, has been driving the bins of books to the courthouse in his car all summer.
In addition to the book drive, Preminger also ran a toy drive for the children in Family Court that inspired him to collaborate with Sally Lieber, a member of the State Board of Equalization and former Mountain View mayor, who had worked with Keplers on book drives for women's prisons and homeless shelters pre-pandemic.
The theme of the Family Court is that usually … is when parents are not getting along well, to say the least, Preminger said.
Then kids get dragged along and the kids are usually sad, uptight and unhappy. And having a book that they can read either in the court or to take home sometimes can be a real salvation for them, Preminger said.
There have been talks about expanding the drive to Santa Clara County Family Justice centers and San Mateo County in the future, as well as efforts to revive previously existing book donation programs, such as the library at the womens jail at Elmwood, according to Lieber.
We're really pleased that Kepler's has, once again, stood up like that, they have consistently for many years now, Lieber said. It's fantastic that the community is so generous with books."
This story was first published on The Almanac.
