The Children's Book Bank: 2010 Volunteer Innovation Award

Some of the most-effective nonprofits in our community have grown from the passion of a single person. The Children’s Book Bank, winner of the Volunteer Innovation Award, is one of them. In less than three years, the Children’s Book Bank has grown from the passion of Dani Swope into an organization that has distributed 50,000 books to children who need them.

Dani’s passion goes back to her experience as a teacher with at-risk children in North Carolina. Dani remembers creating lesson plans without words because of her students low reading skills. Most had no books at home. After having children of her own, Dani picked up some well-loved picture book one day. She couldn’t find a place to donate them so she called a child program. Within the week, her phone was ringing off the hook. "Are you the book lady?," the callers would ask. "I hear you've got books for children."

Dani’s passion grew. She soon began to create the vision for the Book Bank. In those early days, she made a key decision to use volunteers to fuel her new cause. Volunteers, she envisioned, would provide the “staff” support to move books from donors to little hands. The gamble paid off: more than 1,000 volunteers have helped at the Children’s Book Bank in the past two years. “I still get emotional every time I think of how many hands and how many people from the community contribute to each bundle of books that goes out the door,” Dani says.