Give Books

The Launch Pad crew (Bobby and Anita - left, Alex - back right) celebrates another successful giveaway with volunteers from the University of California, Santa Cruz and employees of the Walnut Ave. Family and Women's Center. We hosted a no cost book fair for infants, toddlers, preschool children and the families at the their Early Childhood Education Center.

Donate Funds

Launch Pad is not a standalone nonprofit program, but rather a project of the Social Good Fund.  They are a nonprofit organization that provides fiscal sponsorship to small programs like ours.  This partnership allows us to operate independently and make our own decisions, but receive nonprofit 503(c)(3) status as part of their program.  They also take care of our administrative tasks, legal issues and insurance.  For these services, they currently receive 8% of all donated funds to Launch Pad.  To find out more about how this works and the Social Good Fund, check out their website.

Launch Pad functions as an all volunteer organization.  No member of the program is paid for services.  This allows us to use the other 92% of donated funds to go directly to buying books.

  1. Brand new books - where it make sense, Launch Pad will use available funds to buy brand new books for our kids
  2. Used books - currently Launch Pad purchases used books from Goodwill at an average price of ten cents each book

There are currently two ways to donate to the program.  Checks must be written to The Social Good Fund with Launch Pad on the memo line.  It is critical that Launch Pad is written on the memo line so that the money is placed in the correct account.  Checks can be mailed to:

Launch Pad
P.O. Box 5360
Santa Cruz, CA 95602

Credit and debit cards may also be accepted through our PayPal link.

All donations will receive a receipt complete with our tax ID as a member of the Social Good Fund.

Research shows that giving new books increases the literacy strengthening benefits of book give away programs. Your donations help Launch Pad continue the practice of having every child at a book give-away event choose one new book and one used book

Donate Books

The types of books that Launch Pad needs are:

  1. Books for children - Ages with the biggest need are infancy through twelve years old
  2. Books that are either brand new, like new, or used but still in good shape
  3. Books in Spanish or bilingual English/Spanish

Contact us to let us know you have books to donate and we will be glad to setup a time and place to collect them!

Donate Time

We are steadily growing and there is always plenty to do!

  1. Attend Launch Pad meetings to discuss the direction of the program, develop program ideas and plan events
  2. Help sort, clean, label and identify the appropriate reading level of all of the books donated to the program
  3. Help create and promote book give away and book donation events
  4. Help at book give away events by helping children and families choose books that are both at their interest level and their reading level
  5. Network with the community to find books that need new homes, children that need new books, programs that want to partner with Launch Pad, and ways to get the word out

Interested in helping out? Let us know!