Request for Proposals: Shelf Help 2017

Boston Book Festival is once again reaching out to the Greater Boston community to help us implement our annual Shelf Help project. We know that many elementary schools lack the resources to fully stock their school or classroom libraries with contemporary, high-quality books. We want to help one teacher or librarian grow their book collection, and then we will organize a children’s book author or illustrator visit to share the wonders of book creation with young readers!

Our 2017 Shelf Help initiative wants to provide new books to one K-8 classroom or school library near the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. We will be collecting donations at the ninth annual Boston Book Festival on October 28th.

If you know a teacher or librarian at a school that needs some Shelf Help, please forward them this RFP, which has links to a short online or downloadable application. All proposals are due by May 30, 2017.

You can also lend direct “Shelf Help” to the Boston community! If you would like to donate a book, please come to the Boston Book Festival on October 28 and look out for our information booth, or you can donate through our online book wish list. Email us at info@bostonbookfestival.org to receive a link to the “Shelf Help” donation site. If you would prefer to make a cash donation, please visit our donate page. Upon checking out, select “Make this a gift” and designate “Shelf Help” as the gift recipient in the appropriate box.

With “Shelf Help,” we aim to support students’ discovery and expression of their voices through access to an increased selection of books within their school environment. Words have power to motivate and provoke all readers to discover themselves and their place in the world, and we hope that Shelf Help will encourage students to view themselves as literary explorers!