I am not sure if you have heard about Book Samaritan - it is a non-profit group that help provide free books to homeschoolers.Unfortunately, it seems that every year, their website would go down in the summer time.
If you do a search in Google for "Book Samaritan" - you are sure to find a lot of sites praising them - as well as a lot of messages saying "Where did they go?" and "Do they still exist?" and "I can't get on." There are messages like that in 2007, 2008, and this year... 2009. There are also messages in 2007 and 2008 along the lines of "It is working now".
Last year, we got books from them. I managed to get on the site long enough to get the address and request books - and sure enough, we got a nice selection of books. Not all fit what we were trying to do, but enough did that it was worthwhile - and I passed on the books that didn't.
This year, I have been trying to get on the site for months. I did send a request in August, having found the information from last year - but I haven't gotten a response yet. It is their busy time. The website address I had was down - and has been for a while. I found a post in July on a blog (in comments about the site being down) - that they were having problems and were going to make a new website.
Well - I found it! They have opened a blog instead of using their domain.
So - for those of you that either need assistance getting homeschooling books - or for those who have homeschool books that they are not using and would like to donate... Here is their location.
They are located in the United States - but as I mentioned, they did send books to Canada for me last year. Keep in mind that shipping to Canada is more expensive to them - so if you are in the position to donate books - please do it. I don't know if they ship out of North America.
And - A big THANK YOU to these volunteers that make it easier to homeschool.
Thanks so much for sharing! What a great idea. While we basically have the curriculum we need right now (thanks to online reading from Baldwin Project) when I clear my preschool stuff out I'm going to keep them in mind.
ReplyDeleteI also plan to share the info with my homeschool group. It might make a neat service project somehow...
I was really thrilled with them. That is where we got our German Curriculum, for instance. I haven't heard from them this year yet, but now that I know they still exist, I hope to get a box at my door sometime later this month or so.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a fantastic project for the homeschool group to figure out what they could send to them.
Thanks for the update. I assumed they didn't exist anymore.
ReplyDeleteYes, I had really wondered, and it delayed me putting in a request this year. I still haven't gotten a response yet, but I'm hopeful.
ReplyDeleteI had found posts on a blog from May saying they were still around... and a lot showing that they "disappeared" every year with troubles.
Then I finally found a comment on a blog that they were getting a new website.... and so I searched using their name AND a part of their address - and found it!