AMHERST — The longstanding giant book sale spearheaded by the League of Women Voters of Amherst is returning to the Fort River Elementary School at 70 S. East St. at the end of this month.
The sale, which has been around for many decades, will once again occur across two weekends, according to Patricia Farrington, a league member. The sale will occur on July 26 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and July 27-28 and Aug. 3-4 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“It’s our only fundraiser of the year and it’s been going on for such a long time,” Farrington told Reminder Publishing. “The community loves to go there and get inexpensive used books.”
To prepare for the sale, the league collected drop off donations of all types of books for all types of ages that cover all types of genres and subject matter. Farrington said they have 10, 20, even 30,000 books available for the sale at 50 cents, $1 or $2.
According to the flyer, anything from children’s books to coffee table or rare books, to CDs and DVDs, are available at the fair. The only books they did not allow were magazines, textbooks, or books that were in poor shape.
“I mean, the list goes on and on,” Farrington said, speaking on the breadth of the sale.
The money raised from the sale will help fund things like a community grant program, scholarship program for high schoolers as well as other programs focusing on voter education, according to Farrington.
The league will also be available at the sale to help register voters if they so choose.
Any books that are not sold at the sale will either go to places like the Amherst Survival Center, or, an organization called Discovery Books will come to collect them all and find ways to sell them on places like eBay or Amazon.
Farrington said the league is currently accepting volunteers who want to help organize the books. She added that anyone interested can come to Fort Hill anytime between 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to help.
Volunteers do not need to sign up, they just need to show up.
Readers can learn more about the sale by visiting the League of Women Voters website, www.lwvamherst.org/book-sale.
