Lend A Book, Lend A Hand

As a publisher, naturally I believe in the power and importance of books
and their ability not only to entertain, but to empower and heal as
well. That's why we at Ephemera Bound, the publishers, editors, authors — all avid readers ourselves — wanted to do
something to help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, by means personally significant to us. We have teamed up with other booklovers
across the world at BookCrossing.com to contribute to the relief efforts with KatrinaBooks.com, a book
donation program for victims of this disaster.

By using organizations that already exist to expedite the delivery of
donations, we hope to deliver more than 'just books,' but deliver the
message that people care.

Why Donate Books?

Along with the educational aspects of reading, books are food for the
soul. Reading offers adults a bit of refuge and an escape from their current
situations. As a parent, having a quiet way to both comfort and entertain
my children is a gift beyond words... Books are portable, and given the right circumstances, easy items to travel with.

Books are also personal gifts. Your donation will help people not only
directly with the joy of reading, but show a personal connection between
the person giving and the person receiving them. Children can help
children, adults help other adults — all touching one another's lives
through the passing along of a book... just as real friends do!

With this program, not only will books go directly to the people
affected by Hurricane Katrina, but givers and recipients can also connect
through our partner, BookCrossing. It is our hope that many survivors
who receive the books will, some time after settling into their new
lives, log on to BookCrossing and make notes on the books they received
as well as comments to those who sent the books. It's a chance for the
world to come together!

It's Easy To Do!

A) Take those books off the shelf, register them at BookCrossing, fill
out the Books for Katrina labels, and in your release notes mention they are for Katrina
Survivors (a link to this article or our website so others may join in would be nice!).

B) Package & ship the books to:

The Salvation Army

Books for Katrina Survivors

5950 Fairmont Parkway

Pasadena TX 77505

Partners With Ephemera Bound in "Books for Katrina":

BookCrossing.com: With over 399,000 worldwide book-loving members, the site is a natural way to reach persons interested in donating books. Since they have an existing structure
which tracks books (currently over 2,368,000 books have been
registered), why re-invent a great wheel? And it's free!

Houston Salvation Army : Not only
is the Salvation Army organization already in place, working directly
with people to dispense donated items, but the Houston branch is
overwhelmed with the thousands of evacuees. While you may be aware of
the thousands in the Astro Dome, that is roughly only a third of the
Katrina survivors who have flooded the state of Texas.

Backwash.com : We'd like to thank Backwash.com for providing tremendous promotional support!

Our Long Term Commitment:

Our immediate goal is to help survivors heal and move on with their lives
in the immediate aftermath of this storm. However, our commitment is a
continuing one. Once evacuees return to their homes and/or establish new
homes, we'd also like to maintain the book donation program to help
rebuild the damaged and lost school and public libraries. If you know
someone who can help, or are interested in being a part of this long
term effort, please contact us!

For more information, please visit our website, or contact Deanna
Dahlsad, President, Equilibri-Yum, Inc. at Deanna at Equilibri-Yum.com, or call (U.S.) 701.306.6145.

Please note that the official website, KatrinaBooks.com, may take a few days to be 'found' by domain servers. Until then, use the links in this article. Thank you!

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