Eliza’s Brilliant Bookshop

Our Young Ambassador Eliza and her mum Melinda have worked hard over the last few months raising money for It’s good 2 give and other charities with their online second hand book shop, Eliza’s Fundraising Bookshop.

Following a very busy summer, here’s Melinda to tell you, in her words, about their amazing project.

‘In late May Eliza, who was fifteen, and I were brainstorming ways to complete her Duke of Edinburgh Volunteering task for ‘It’s good 2 give’. She couldn’t go out in the community to work anywhere because we are a shielding family and had to keep our risk at an absolute minimum. A friend in my book group who usually uses the local library mentioned that she was running out of books to read and wasn’t sure where she would get her next lot. Eliza and I discussed setting up a book exchange box in front of our house and asking people to donate a pound to exchange but this might involve people touching the books which we didn’t want and also the weather could be an issue. So, we came up with the idea of a secondhand bookshop run from our house for our immediate community, given the lockdown restrictions. All the books would be left in our garage for at least a three day quarantine period and also wiped with disinfectant before we sold them.

As soon as we started advertising, many people contacted us wanting to donate their books because they had been clearing out during lockdown and the charity shops were closed. So our garage starting filling up with stacked boxes of books. Eliza and her friend Ava spent many afternoons unpacking the boxes and wiping the books and putting them into genre piles so I could log them. The different categories were spread throughout the house — cookbooks in the back kitchen, adult fiction in the lounge, children’s in the front room, sport in a room upstairs — and the stacks grew. Initially we only asked for a minimum donation of £1 per book asking people to give more if they could. We did this to make it accessible to everyone including people who might be struggling financially due to the pandemic. As we have gone on, however, we have started charging a bit more for more valuable books. All stock was scanned and we looked to see what they are selling for on Amazon and Abebooks to get an indication of where to put the suggested donation. We always went significantly lower than their online price because people must collect them from our house and also we want to keep it accessible for everyone.

We started in June and it grew very quickly. We now have a spreadsheet of over 3000 books. We have charity shop collecting boxes of unsaleable books for recycling or ones we have multiple copies of. We have donated over thirty boxes of books now to other charity shops. Also, we have donated books to newly qualified teachers and helped to supply a nursery with books and will offer our remaining children's books to school libraries when we finish the initiative. We would like to recycle everything.

So far we have raised £3635 for It’s good 2 give and £1160 for local food banks/kitchens including Empty Kitchens, Full Hearts; Gorgie City Farm food bank; One Stop Shop in Broomhouse and Holy Trinity food bank in Wester Hailes. We are supporting a number of charities.

We decided to support It’s good 2 give because we have seen the great work they do and know how important it is to have support when you have a child or young adult who is going through cancer treatment. Eliza’s brother, Andrew, has been in treatment for leukaemia for almost three years and the support It’s good 2 give gave our family really helped us to start the healing process. Also, many parents who have a child with cancer must cut back their hours or give up work altogether to care for them and attend the hospital appointments. It puts a tremendous strain on families both financially and emotionally. The pandemic only added another layer of worry and hardship to these families and we wanted to do something about it to let them know that they are not alone. We have asked that funds raised for It’s good 2 give in the bookshop be put towards supermarket vouchers for families in need.

Now that Eliza is back at school, I need to get back to work and am winding down the bookshop. We have a spreadsheet with over 5000 books listed in categories and many of the books are only £1!

Now is a great time to not only stock up on your winter reading but also to support the charities that have been struggling to fundraise during the pandemic and are helping those in need.

Please share with your friends, neighbours, colleagues, family. We need one final push to clear the stock and raise valuable funds. If anyone orders over £40 worth of books, we will deduct £5 from the final cost.

Collection is contact-free in Murrayfield. Thank you!”

Thank you Eliza and Melinda.

You are fantastic.

Please have a look at the books Eliza still has available: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i_hd4I3Y3tUjsMEaTDHvsb8MAuVaDgLhMBOOk8Ovhcg/edit?usp=sharing

Here is a link to Eliza’s Fundraising Bookshop Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Elizasfundraisingbookshop .

Orders can be made by messaging our Facebook page or emailing elizasfundraisingbookshop@gmail.com