Two of our largest fundraisers for the Sacramento SPCA are the Fall and Spring Book Sales. If you’ve never been, it’s quite a show and well worth checking out: thousands of books at very low prices, with stock constantly refreshed. Between the two sales, $65K – $75K is raised every year!! All of the proceeds go right back into our animals, programs, and services: giving more than shelter.

All of this takes an astronomical amount of work, as you might imagine, and it is largely the work of the Book Barn volunteers. The Book Barn Volunteer team currently has 29 members, including 3 couples! Most of the current crew has been volunteering for at least 5 years, and the Book Barn itself has been around almost 40 years. Roles include different levels of sorting, selling high-value books on Amazon, and working with book dealers to get the best price for the extremely rare and high-dollar books that pass through.

You might think that sorting books means very little exposure to the shelter animals, but it is quite the opposite!! Book Barn volunteers keep a huge box of different treats to give out to every dog walking by, with little soft treats for tiny, toothless chihuahuas to bigger treats for our larger fur guests. Bringing the dogs by the Book Barn not only allows them to get positive socialization with lots of different people but also build confidence sniffing around in the warehouse-like atmosphere of the Barn. It was very obvious in spending some time with the crew that they knew the name of every shelter dog that walked by and had a special treat or ear scratch for each of them.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

“I love seeing the faithful dog walkers out in all weathers, when I’m here, as well as the general bustle of people who really enjoy their jobs.  It’s also been extremely gratifying & exciting to see the evolution of the Shelter since ’94 – going from a one-building (plus horse barn & book barn) operation that mainly housed animals & was stretched to do it, to a thriving organization, that not only works very hard to re-home pets, but increasingly adds programs to make sure they don’t get here in the first place.” ~Kris Raatz

“I love that I can be around books while helping animals at the same time. Sorting through all the donated books is kind of like looking for treasure.  Being around like-minded people who love animals and books is very nice. I’ve been volunteering for about ten years, so I guess I like it!” ~Susan Baggott

“Initially, for about 3 years, I worked in the Cattery, first as a Cat Socializer and then as an Adoption Counselor.  I truly enjoyed it, but after a while, I wanted to adopt all of them myself and restraint isn’t my strong suit, so I switched over to the Book Barn and now I buy lots of books (at least they don’t need to be fed!)” ~Gerri Wigglesworth

Thank you all for what you do every day for the animals and the organization; you are noticed and appreciated! And if you’re interested in joining the Book Barn team, sign up to volunteer today!