By Gloria Stravelli
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – Once Abigail Daly learned about the need for books for displaced Afghan adults and children being temporarily housed on a New Jersey military base, the founder of the local nonprofit Bridge of Books took on the mission.
“Bridge of Books became involved because one of our board members sort of put the issue in my head and then I couldn’t let it go,” Daly said in an interview.
“I was literally sitting in a supermarket parking lot one day and I just searched Fort Dix and Joint Base McGuire and I started making phone calls,” Daly said. “It’s what we do.
“It’s kind of like we see a need and then we try to figure out a way to get books to meet that need. And it was just making random phone calls and I found the right person who took my name and information, which then got passed along to the right person on the base.”
Within the space of a few weeks of planning, the roadmap came together to coordinate the donation by three nonprofits of close to 9,000 books to the Afghan families currently housed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
“It took a lot of planning in terms of coordination, which organization would go first, bringing together everybody on the emails,” explained Daly, executive director of Bridge of Books, which spearheaded the effort to provide books to the 8,500 Afghan citizens living temporarily on base while they await resettlement in communities across the United States.
Bridge of Books Foundation is a volunteer-led organization with the mission to provide an ongoing source of books to underserved children throughout New Jersey in order to support the development of literacy skills and to encourage a love of reading.
Currently operating out of Rumson, Red Bank and Atlantic Highlands, Bridge of Books Foundation collects books through drives, individual donations, publisher overstocks, and corporate donors. Books are then distributed through various agencies, community events, schools and other venues.
Since its founding in 2003, Bridge of Books Foundation has facilitated the donation of nearly 1.3 million books to underserved children across New Jersey.
“Bridge of Books exists to level the playing field by creating equal access to books for all children,” Daly said in a press release. “In this case, we knew that a group of children had landed in this country who had no books and may only have limited proficiency in English, if any at all.”
She noted that they were a “group of kids who very clearly need access to books to call their own.”
After getting in touch with the correct point person, Daly networked among her connections to source the books for those who had been evacuated from their homeland during the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
“I reached out to Tom Martin at Camden County Pop Up Library, which gives books away across Camden and other underserved areas, and to Larry Abrams at BookSmiles Book Bank in Cherry Hill. We have very similar missions,” Daly noted.
Of the 9,000 books delivered, some 2,650 were donated by Bridge of Books, including 452 Dari and Pashto bilingual children’s books, as well as board books and graphic novels.
BookSmiles delivered 5,000-plus books for children and adults to the base and Camden County Pop Up Library delivered 1,000-plus books for adults.
“I hope we do it again and raise awareness that it’s best to donate books to us because we get them into the hands of those who need them the most,” said Abrams, BookSmiles founder and executive director, in the release.
The donation by Camden County Pop Up Library included books on professional development, cookbooks and magazines, according to Martin, who is founder and executive director.
In addition, Kristen Lamoreaux, head of a technology search firm and a Bridge of Books supporter, contributed online resources and curated a list of professional development sites and books.
“The hope is that these links will give families a place to start their transition within the United States workforce,” she said.
In a Bridge of Books Facebook post Nov. 23, the final day of the drive, Daly thanked supporters for the tremendous effort.
“That’s what it’s about,” said Daly, “three nonprofits from different parts of New Jersey coming together and bringing all those communities of our donors together and our digital community together to help a set of individuals who really have nothing and have no home right now other than a home that’s been given to them on a military base.”
The scenario presented unique challenges, she acknowledged.
“We’ve done a number of big donations over the years… but this was different,” Daly said, “because it’s children from another country and their families who came here under pretty uncertain circumstances and are looking for a new life.”
Daly noted how New Jerseyans always seem to come together to assist others in a crisis.
“These people live here now, they’re in our state and they need our help and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to help them.”
She said books are an “invaluable” part of that effort. She hopes the books will “keep these kids occupied and hopefully help them start to learn English.”
They’ll start to learn about their new country.”
For more information, visit bridgeofbooksfoundation.org.
The article originally appeared in the December 16 – 22, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
