Loveland High School in Loveland, Colorado, is setting the bar high for this year’s book drive competition.  The first school to reach the 5,000 point mark, they’re plowing through books left and right – they actually just prescreened another 1,000 points yesterday.

We spoke with student Lizz Roth to find out where all their books were coming from.  She said their Schools for Schools club received a sizable donation of books from a local organization that one of their members belongs to.  The club has slowly been sifting through these books and prescreening them, and in the meantime have also been doing outreach to their community and even driving to individual family’s homes to pick up book donations.  About 50% of the books Loveland has prescreened so far have been worth points and they’ve been ingenious with putting the other 50% to use.  Some of these books were just sold in a rummage sale that Loveland hosted in their cafeteria, and many more were donated to a local charity organization.  Lizz says her club plans to extend their rummage sale to the online community by posting ads for books and other items on craigslist.

We asked Lizz what piece of advice she would like to share with other schools that are participating in the book drive.  She says: “Don’t get defeated before you begin. Go out and try and find books.”  We couldn’t agree more.  There are tons of books out there, and the harder you look, the more of them you’re going to find.  Good luck with your search, and thanks to everyone at Loveland for all of your help.

Natasha Bliss

Book Drive Manager