O2C Fairbanks Inc. was inspired by the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, the “yule book flood“, and gifting books on Christmas Eve – so we set out to Flood Fairbanks With Books For Children during 2018’s Holiday Season. This project was an enormous success! Thanks to all of our fantastic donors, who give monthly or supported this project with one-time donations (or many of you who did BOTH) – we fully funded this project FAST and were able to put in a custom order with Enchanted Forest Toys – a list of magical books that are beloved the world over. This project would not have been possible without both the support of our donors and the support from Enchanted Forest Toys, who matched every donor dollar for dollar and then some! This project was another wonderful example of Fairbanks individuals and Fairbanks small business coming together to spread joy and generousity. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll keep saying it, our Fairbanks community is exceptional!
On December 8th, we unpacked all of the boxes of books and as soon as the doors opened at TRAX Outdoor Center’s Holiday Bazaar, our booth was flooded with children and their parents, picking out their book to take home and read over Holiday Break. There were truly children of all ages who partook! A couple of expecting Moms chose books to read to the babies they were still carrying, toddlers picked out board books, very young children chose books for their parents to read to them, and school aged children from pre-k – highschool all found literary treasures to take home with them. Each book was a hardcover and a special edition, all with beautiful unique covers … we wanted each child to not only have a book that they enjoyed reading, but one that would last a lifetime.
This project was an enormous success because over 300 children went home that day and read, or were read to by their caregivers. 300 is a smallish number, but when it comes to books and families reading together – you can imagine how many ripples of goodness 300 books might create.
** Another extra special thank you to Stacy Yates. You are an inspiration and a beautiful, magical faerie of a woman.
-Grace Wilson