Publishing During a Pandemic | Benay Hicks

Hello, and welcome back to Publishing During the Pandemic! In my last post, I talked about how Bluestockings Bookstore has adapted its business to the pandemic. But bookstores are not the only book-centric businesses that have been affected by the pandemic. For this post, I had the opportunity to speak with Benay Hicks from Book Harvest, a nonprofit dedicated to providing books and literacy support to young readers, about how they have adapted to working virtually. While going remote has presented its own challenges, the pandemic’s effects on our education system have made the work they do more important than ever.

First of all, would you like to start by describing your nonprofit for any readers who haven't heard of you?

Book Harvest provides an abundance of books and ongoing literacy support to families and their children from birth and serves as a model for communities committed to ensuring that children are lifelong readers and learners. We are a 501c3 nonprofit based in Durham, North Carolina, and have been operating for ten years. Our programming includes working directly with children and their families from birth to first grade, with community partners to ensure every child has access to free, diverse, and age-appropriate books, and with research entities to turn our work into sustainable change. 

How have the circumstances of the pandemic affected how organizations like yours do business?

Book Harvest is very much a client-based nonprofit, meeting with families in their personal homes and distributing books in schools and various community locations, such as laundromats and nonprofits. When the pandemic hit, we had to completely reevaluate how to get books in the hands of youth and support for parents while minimizing face-to-face interaction. Like many businesses, we went virtual for a lot of our programming. Our Book Babies program, which offers family support for a child’s first five years of life, is now virtual and done through text/email/phone/video chats.  

We also knew that due to education loss taking place with school closures, we had to step up our book distribution efforts. To do this, we partnered with local food distribution efforts to include books in the deliveries. We also set up a Grab-and-Go book center at our headquarters, essentially providing drive-thru book giveaway services several times per week. 

Operationally, our entire team began working remotely, which meant implementing online procedures and more frequent staff meetings. 

What were some of the first steps you took to maintain your nonprofit when the lockdowns started?

We immediately began to adapt – unlike many businesses that were hit quite hard, there was money for nonprofits to continue to do their work. We were able to think quickly and change our programming to meet the need of the community.

Virtual events have become the new normal. What kind of online events have you been holding? What has your experience with them been?

All of our events are online, specifically we will have a holiday celebration for our Book Babies program this December. All of the families will be on Zoom together and we will have a full program, complete with entertainment and presentations.

In some ways, virtual events have improved accessibility, while in other ways the opposite is true. In your experience, have online events allowed for broader participation? Do you see future events incorporating any virtual components, even post-pandemic? 

For us, online events haven’t necessarily improved accessibility. But it has increased our ability to operate virtually, and we have gotten better at working with families from afar. This will most likely enhance our programming post-pandemic, but will not be a substitute for the in-person work we were doing prior. 

Many thanks to Benay Hicks for speaking with me about Book Harvest, and thanks to the whole Book Harvest team for all you are doing to bring books to young readers. You can find out more about Book Harvest on their website here. And if you have any books you want to get rid of, consider donating to help their cause!