Christmas Party with Readings & Songs and then the members will regroup at a local restaurant to continue their festivities over a fine supper and libations.
First, on behalf of the book and comic industries, we must thank the Book Industry Charitable (Binc) Foundation for all it has done to help stores and store staff in need, especially since March 2020.
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With the help of three volunteers, Binc created an online application to further ease the process. Other volunteers pitched in as well, and Binc essentially brought on anyone who had the skills French and her team knew they needed. They also relied on a public health emergency policy that Binc had formulated in the past. As a result of all this, Binc was able to send out the first checks to individual applicants on March 17. At this time, Binc was receiving a new request for assistance every 15 minutes, all day every day.
"It's humbling to know that what we have been working towards for the past eight years, all of the advocacy we did and conversations we had, it paid off," French says. "Folks found us when the need was highest."
(For a full account of how Binc responded in the first few months to the pandemic, see this Shelf Awareness article from May 2020.)