SCARCE Book Rescue Summer Snapshot

This summer was one for the books here at SCARCE. Summertime is our busy season for drop-offs of books and supplies: schools are cleaning out, community members are de-cluttering, and businesses are streamlining. Everyone seems to get the organizing bug this time of year and SCARCE is a happy recipient of many of their useful cast-offs.

We thought we’d share what we accomplished together.

Our Impact: Rescuing Resources

From June through August we received a total of 1,209 deliveries consisting of:

• 6,705 boxes of books
• 1,301 boxes of school and office supplies
• 334 boxes of other items for reuse and recycling

That’s almost 121 boxes received each day we were open and
one drop-off every 24 minutes.

We must give a HUGE thanks to our awesome summer staff and volunteers doing the hard work of heavy lifting, sorting, recycling, and stocking. Running on passion and popsicles, they brave the summer heat and cramped quarters and helped us divert over 8,000 boxes of resources from landfills, conserving natural resources and helping educators around the world.

Our Impact: Recirculating Resources

Weekday visits also pick up during the summer months since teachers are out of school. Some days only moments will pass between stocking a shelf and seeing the item go right out the door in the box of a teacher, excited to put it to use at school.

In total, we recorded 2,010 visits to the SCARCE Book Rescue. Visitors reported receiving a total of:

• 64,930 books
• 334 boxes of supplies
• 636 bags of crayons
• 2,363 large items (book shelves, globes, projectors, etc)
• 1,351 Super Crayons
• 12 musical instruments

This doesn’t even include our annual contribution to the Catholic Charities Back-to-School Fair where SCARCE staff and volunteers handed out approximately 12,000 books to underprivileged students in DuPage County. In total, SCARCE was able to get over 1,000 books a day to schools and organizations.

Each year, the Book Rescue’s busy season seems to start early and extend further into the fall. We are grateful for all the enthusiasm to reduce waste and recirculate valuable materials to educators, non-profits, and those in need.