ShelterBox Book Club celebrates 5 years & £1.25mn raised
Melanie May | 23 October 2023 | News
ShelterBox Book Club is celebrating its five-year anniversary and the milestones of 90,000 books read and £1,250,000 raised.
Every six weeks the subscription book club invites its members on a journey, discovering the countries where ShelterBox works. The book club gives readers the chance to see the world through another person’s eyes, while providing support to people affected by disasters.
The international disaster relief charity specialises in emergency shelter and has helped more than 2.5 million people across almost 100 countries. It is currently supporting people displaced in Morocco, Türkiye and Syria by earthquakes, flooding in Libya, as well as conflict in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.
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Helping to fund this work, ShelterBox Book Club was the UK’s first not-for-profit book subscription service, formed in November 2018. It now has thousands of members across the UK.
Head Bookworm at ShelterBox, Catherine Thornhill said:
“Every month our members help to make a real difference around the world. The people our charity supports have often had to leave behind their homes, belongings, livelihoods, and sometimes even loved ones.
“Our book club is raising funds to help people who need it with different combinations of emergency shelter, and basic items like water filters, mosquito nets, and blankets, to make the biggest difference for communities after disaster.
“The difference this book club and our members are making to people all over the world is incredible.”
New members can join for a suggested donation of £10 a month, or memberships can be gifted in subscriptions of six- or 12-month packages. Every six weeks, members get the chance to vote for the next read from a shortlist of three titles hand-picked by Thornhill to reflect the people and places the charity works with.
A copy of the most popular book will arrive in the post for members to enjoy with a letter telling them about a family they’ve supported through their membership. Members can also attend online events discussing books with other members and get involved in exclusive live Q&As with the authors.
Thornhill added:
“Our books take us all around the world, immersing readers in cultures from countries where ShelterBox works. We’ve read stories by women from Afghanistan with ‘My Pen is the Wing of a Bird’, a young boy’s remarkable experiences in the Malawian story ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ by William Kamkwamba, a tale of friendship in the Japanese story ‘Sweet Bean Paste’ by Durian Sukegawa translated by Alison Watts, and one close to our cause, true stories of upheaval in ’We Are Displaced’ by Malala Yousafzai.
“It is completely humbling that ShelterBox Book Club is thriving five years after it started and we’re so grateful for the wonderful support we’ve received from the publishers we’ve worked with, the incredible authors who’ve shouted about our work, and of course our readers.”
More on charity subscriptions here.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.