Smut for schools! Won't anyone think of the children?

Early Sunday morning, while the building was empty, a fire started in the kidlet's elementary school. They think it was caused by a mouse chewing on the wiring. Thank God, no one was hurt, but there's $800,000 worth of damage; every room in the building suffered smoke and/or water damage.

This is a struggling public school with an awful lot of low-income and low-education families. Just last year they were forced to spend a bunch of money on safety-related parking-lot redesigns, and they were just at the point where their fund-raising could go for things more directly related to education when this happened.

What do they need? Books. The kidlet's fourth-grade teacher lost a thousand books. The library sustained heavy water and smoke damage. I don't know how many of the books will survive.

They're looking for gently used children's books (grades pre-K through 5) and for gift certificates to help them replace books and other things.

There are a lot of worthy causes looking for money just now, but if this particular reading-related worthy cause tugs at your heartstrings the way it does at mine, here's my offer:

Donate either books or gift certificates (see below for how). Ask me a question regarding one or more of the characters I write. I'll write you a snippet, or possibly more if inspiration strikes.

( The fine print )