Help the Tucson Tome Gnome Hide Free Books in 2022

***Update, July 2022: Friends - thank you so much for helping to make this GFM campaign a huge success! We have recently launched a new campaign to raise money for hiding free books in 2023. If you want to help, please head over there and check it out!***

***Friends! Even though the Tucson Tome Gnome has met its initial goal, we are leaving the GoFundMe active for the remainder of the year in order to support the purchase of additional books in 2022 and/or to begin raising funds to support book hiding adventures in 2023. Thank you so much for your continued support!***

During this crazy pandemic, three good friends living in Tucson (Emily, Jody, and Mary Ellen) decided that we needed to put our energy into something positive to help us get through the general craziness of 2021. We agreed that we wanted to share some surprise kindness and delight with our community here in Tucson.

 

We all love books, so in September 2021 we decided to buy 30 copies of one of our favorite books (here’s looking at you, “The House in the Cerulean Sea”!), put a bookmark/sticker/bow on them, and we hid them all around town for people to find. And so began the adventures of the @tucsontomegnome ♥️

 

It was SO FUN seeing people finding the surprise books that we did it again in October with “Mexican Gothic” and again in November with “The City We Became”. In 2021, we hid 90 books around Tucson, hoping that they would bring some surprise bookish happiness to our friends and neighbors who found them. And now we want to keep the momentum going in 2022, starting in February!

 

The average cost for each book is around $16, making our monthly costs for 30 books approximately $480 (we only buy from local indie bookstores). Multiply this by the remaining months in 2022 (February - December), and this adds up to a little over $5K. Thus, our goal for this GoFundMe is to see if the community can come together to help fund the cost of the hidden books for the remainder of 2022!

 

Why this? Why books? Escaping into beautiful stories is one of the ways we have survived these past few years - and we wanted others to have that experience as well. Also, it’s just nice to put some random kindness into the world during a time that has otherwise been challenging.

 

So there it is. We’re not sure where this is all going, but we love doing it. So if you think it’s kind of cool, we'd love to have you support us with a donation and follow the Tome Gnome’s adventures on Instagram and on our website.

 

Thank you so much for your investment in us and in the Tucson community!