Book Donations for Porterville City Library

As some of you may know, Porterville City Library in Porterville, CA suffered a catastrophic fire on February 18th, 2020, losing their entire collection of roughly 77,000 materials, including books, audiobooks, and DVDs. Tragically, firefighters Captain Ray C. Figueroa and Patrick L. Jones lost their lives fighting the blaze as they tried to ensure no one was trapped inside the library during the intense fire.

As Porterville struggles to recover from this tragedy, I am asking authors, writers organizations, and publishers to pledge to donate books to help rebuild Porterville City Library's collection. These book donations will be included in the Figueroa and Jones Memorial Collection to honor the service and sacrifice of those two brave heroes.

I am only asking for pledges at this time for two reasons. First, the Porterville City Library is still in the early stages of securing funding and locating a site for their new library, so they have no place to store a new influx of donated books. Second, the library still needs to assess the book donations they have received from their community and other sources, so they do not know which titles will be needed. Curating a list of pledged books at this stage will not only assist them in planning, but also provide the library and community encouragement and support.

Important: Please do not mail your books at this time. We will contact you when they are ready to receive them.

I will be coordinating with Porterville's head librarian, Vikki Cervantes, throughout this entire process, and providing periodic updates via email to keep you apprised of the library's progress. Once the library is ready to receive our donations, we will reach out with instructions on where to send the pledged books that are needed. Full disclosure: I am not a resident of Porterville, nor am I affiliated with the Porterville City Library in any way. I am simply an author trying to assist a library—one of our most treasured institutions—that is in need.

To pledge your books for donation to the Porterville City Library, please fill out the brief form below. All of the fields are necessary and will save the library staff time and effort, so please fill it out to completion. You may pledge as many of your titles as you wish. Any and all pledged donations are greatly appreciated! Any contact information you provide will remain private, and will only be utilized by myself and the staff of the Porterville City Library in regards to these efforts.

For those who may wish to make cash contributions to the library's recovery, monetary donations can be directed to the City of Porterville (Attention: Library) or checks can be mailed to The Friends of the Porterville Library at 15 East Thurman Avenue, Porterville, CA 93257. (Their non-profit 501c3 is ID# 93-1143562.) http://www.ci.porterville.ca.us/depts/Library/

The publishing community is an amazing group, and my fellow authors are some of the most generous and heartfelt people I know. My sincere thanks and gratitude to all of you for your support of Porterville City Library and libraries everywhere! #PortervilleStrong