Booksellers Buy Reading Glasses to Benefit ABFFE

From left, Phil Meyer, founder of 2020 Vision USA; Chris Finan; Denise Foster (Phil's daughter) and Neil Foster.

Booksellers at BookExpo America responded strongly to an offer by 2020 Vision USA to donate $1 to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) for every pair of reading glasses that it sells to independent bookstores.

Exhibiting beside ABFFE in the ABA Booksellers Lounge, representatives of the Sarasota, Florida, company wrote 15 orders during the show and received serious expressions of interest from another 40 stores. 2020 Vision will donate $1,500 based on the orders it has already taken and has promised to continue to contribute to ABFFE for all future orders.

'We were knocked out by the response," ABFFE President Chris Finan said. "People were crowded around the displays all weekend. It certainly helped that people loved the glasses and the willingness of 2020 Vision to exchange designs that don't sell as expected."

2020 Vision, a family business founded in 1996, offers a huge inventory of high fashion Italian designs, www.2020visionusa.com. Among its customers are bookstores across the country, including Books & Books in Miami, which sells several thousand pairs of 2020 Vision's designs annually. It was Mitchell Kaplan, the owner of Books & Books and a member of the ABFFE board, who came up with the idea of approaching sideline vendors to see if they might be interested in contributing to ABFFE. He received an enthusiastic response from Phil Meyer, the founder of 2020 Vision, and his daughter, Denise Foster.