Good books to good people. It's a simple equation.

Earlier this year Hawthorne Books had some fantastic fortune and as a result we decided to pay a little bit forward. That’s how the Hawthorne Books Donation Program came to be. The recipient selection process wasn’t too difficult — although there are several worthy organizations that we didn’t donate to that we plan to donate to in the future.

In the end we donated more than 500 books — all Hawthorne titles — to some fantastic organizations including Portland-based Write Around Portland (WRAP), Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools, Outside In and Portland Public Schools. We also donated several cartons of books to the prison literacy program Changing Lives Through Literature.

It feels great to give back in this way.

If you have books that you’d like to donate here are some recipients you might want to consider:

Books Behind Bars
Books To Prisoners
Books For Soldiers
Goodwill
Salvation Army
And don’t forget public school systems, local teachers, and public libraries.