Charity & book clubs?

Has your book club ever taken on a charity project, book-related or otherwise? After reading Bowling Alone, I began to think about how we now gather in groups, particularly book groups. It seems the next step in book group evolution would be to take on the occasional charitable/civic project. Knitting groups seem to already be doing this. How about book groups?

Has your book group taken on any projects, large or small, that benefit others besides yourselves? Have you sent books to Iraq or New Orleans; or had a bake sale for RIF or the people down the street whose house may have burned down. Have you volunteered at the local library sale or read to residents of an elderly care facility... How about a book-related charity project, say, in connection with reading Mountains beyond Mountains...you catch my drift, I think. Do these kind of things even belong in bookgroups?

I think they do and would love to see a group do it. I am a assitant in a high school library and lead/mediate two YA book clubs. We are always short books and usually borrow books from other libraries and pass them around, but someone always misses out or doesn't have the time when they do get the book. I have often thought it would be interesting to partner with an adult book club once a year or something where the adult group reads and buys the book first then donates the books to the school group. I have never worked out the details of this idea or approaced anyone about it, but I thought it might be an appropriate project for a book club to give books to young readers.

That is a really interesting idea. When I was at the bookstore I worked with two high school staff members who were also working with two high school book groups. Not every book would work but certainly something like My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult would.
Why don't you approach your community newspaper to profile your reading groups with the intent of getting your idea out there...one never knows, it might just make the connection you need. By chance, did your group read Black Juice by Margo Lanagan (I saw it in your library)?