Important Bookseller Relief Fund News

The American Booksellers Association is encouraging as many member stores as possible to join together on Saturday, October 1, to raise funds for the Bookseller Relief Fund (BRF), which will provide bookstore owners and employees with humanitarian relief for such items as temporary housing, food, clothing, transportation, medical expenses, and/or other personal items lost or damaged. (The funds will not be granted to rebuild a business.)

Booksellers are being encouraged to donate a percentage of the day's sales (to be determined by the individual store) to the Fund, which ABA seeded with an initial contribution of $25,000. Since the Fund's establishment, ABA's Book Sense publisher partners, the regional booksellers associations, individual booksellers, and others in the book industry have been generously making donations.

A growing number of ABA member stores have already pledged to participate in the October 1 event, which will benefit booksellers affected by the disaster conditions in the Gulf Coast region, as well as future emergency situations. ABA is asking all stores that plan to contribute to the Fund by scheduling an October 1 event to let the association know by sending an e-mail to ABA's special projects director, David Walker, at davidw@bookweb.org.

To help publicize the event, ABA has created two downloadable (PDF) fliers -- one announcing the store is donating a portion of the day's sales to the Bookseller Relief Fund and the other encouraging customers to contribute to the fund -- and a sample press release.

Recognizing the need to move as quickly and as expeditiously as possible to provide immediate assistance to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Bookseller Relief Fund Board agreed to a two-phase relief process.

In Phase One, any employees (who worked for 25 hours or more a week) in any retail bookselling entity located within the federally declared disaster area will be eligible to receive a one-time $500 grant if they provide, by October 15, 2005, their name; their current address, phone number, and e-mail address; the name and address of the store where they worked, as well as the name of the store's owner or their immediate supervisor. In addition, booksellers applying for funds must submit a statement affirming that they are no longer being paid by the store where they worked. (Applications may be submitted electronically at www.bookweb.org/read/8126; or a form may be downloaded in PDF format and mailed or faxed to the BRF.)

Under Phase Two of the Relief Fund effort, a subcommittee of the BRF Board will review more expansive requests for assistance from the owners of bookstores within the federally declared disaster area based on a more detailed statement of need.

All necessary documentation for relief from the fund should be sent to the attention of ABA's special projects manager, David Walker [by mail to Bookseller Relief Fund, c/o ABA, 200 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591; by fax to (914) 591-2720; or by e-mail to davidw@bookweb.org].

For more about the Relief Fund, go to www.bookweb.org/read/8092.