New life for discarded books
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By NICK GRABBE, Staff Writer
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Saturday, January 25, 2003-- AMHERST - Some children who want to read about the 1969 moon landing can't find anything that current in their school libraries. At the same time, other people are throwing out their books.
That waste - and the potential to help students in need - motivated David Mazor of Mountain View Circle to get involved. Last fall he formed a nonprofit organization called Reader to Reader, which collects and stores used books and then ships them to libraries in needy schools across the United States.
"You read that the budget crisis is getting worse," he said. "We can do something to help, rather than sit back and say nothing can be done, by recycling resources we have right here."
Mazor, 44, said he has spent $600 of his own money on postage to send more than 5,000 books to schools and colleges as far away as Mississippi and as close as Holyoke. He still has thousands of books in storage, and sometimes comes home to find boxes of books sitting in his garage, brought by an unknown donor.
The library at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams has seen its materials budget reduced by 92 percent, so Mazor has been a godsend, said Allen Morrill, the associate dean for library and information services.
"It's made an incredible difference," he said. "We were as pleased as punch. It's like having a guardian angel."
Mazor has personally delivered 2,151 books to the library. He's also checked the library's holdings electronically to make sure none of the books he delivers are ones it already has, Morrill said.
The Massachusetts School Library Media Association supports any effort to get books to children in low-income communities, said president Dorothy McQuillan of Newton.
"I think it's a wonderful thing," she said of Mazor's effort. "Getting books into kids' hands is critical to their development. It's better than money in the bank. They have made such a difference in people's lives."
"Everyone finds a cause that really excites them, and this is my calling in life," he said.
Mazor's effort began last fall, while visiting the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. He happened to talk to a librarian there who said that budget cuts left no money for acquiring new books. He told her he lived in an academic community and might be able to help.
Mazor, an Amherst native who's now an independent film distributor, called everyone he knew and within a month collected 1,000 books.
Then he went to the Internet and found the name of what's said to be the poorest town in the poorest state in the country: Durant, Miss. When he picked up the phone and called the high school there, the librarian told him she hadn't gotten any new books in years.
Since then, Mazor has also sent books to schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and South Dakota, as well as to Holyoke High School and Holyoke Community College. He acquires discarded books from local libraries and a drop-off site near the landfill, and stores them in his garage and in the basement of the Catigan Center for Religious Life at Amherst College.
"We're sitting on this oil well of resources," he said. "It breaks my heart when people throw books out. Some people burn books for heat. It's a tragedy."
Mazor said he remembers being influenced in his own youth by such books as "1984" by George Orwell, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and even "Go Up for Glory" by basketball star Bill Russell.
"There's talent everywhere," he said. "Someone who has natural talent to draw needs the opportunity to discover a book on painting and expand their horizons. I want people to read these books and say, 'This is what it means to be an artist, or a lawyer, or a writer. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps unless you have boots."
Mazor asks that people who want to donate books, or suggest schools that could benefit from receiving them, call him at 253-7569 or e-mail at dmazor@attbi.com. Books about science and African-American literature are needed most, but anything in good condition is welcome, he said.
Donations to help with postal costs can be sent to 24 Mountain View Circle in Amherst.
Mazor is also looking for a new place to store books.
"A book is still an amazingly efficient means of transferring information," he said. "Computers donated to schools become antiquated, but a copy of a Shakespeare play is just as good as the day it was given."
