<div>Hey, thank you so much for making it to this fundraiser! I’m Sofia Akel, founder of the Free Books Campaign, a non-profit community campaign that gets books by authors of colour into the hands of readers, who have barriers to access. We operate across the UK and Ireland and every book we provide is completely free of charge to those who can’t afford or access them.
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<div><strong>Our Story</strong>
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<div>It was back here in 2020, that I set up our first fundraiser for the campaign, which began to help tackle the widening gap in education and access to literature. Since 2012 over 800 libraries have been permanently closed due to austerity - a number which is likely higher since the pandemic.
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<div>Since then, our campaign has grown into an incredible community of people across the UK &amp; Ireland. In 2021 we officially became a Community Interest Company, meaning that all our resources go back into funding our campaign, with the sole aim of having a positive impact on our communities.
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<div><strong>What We’ve Achieved:</strong>
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<div>In just five years we’ve achieved the below without substantial funding!:
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<li>Donated over 12,000 brand new books
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<li>Ran our annual entirely-free festival, celebrating storytelling in all forms - last year we sold out 3,100 free tickets!
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<li>Never charged a penny for any of our events for 5 years!!
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<li>Worked with incredible international brands such as Warner Bros, Gymshark, TATE, Hennessy, Google, Spotify
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<li>Worked with amazing storytellers such as SAMPHA, Caleb Femi, Tobi Kyremateng, Bolu Babalola, Candice Carty-Williams and more
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<li>Announced our non-financial patrons to the world, who support us on our mission to reach more communities that we can support!
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<li>Have built an online and in-person community of over 12k people
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<div><strong>Free Books Festival<em> - P.s. Thank you for making it this far! </em></strong>
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<div>This year marks 5 years of the Free Books Campaign, and we’re so proud to be bringing back the Free Books Festival - our annual festival that celebrates storytelling in all it’s forms. From music to film, literature to gaming and more, all of our events, workshops, talks, food, and books (of course) are entirely free for attendees. Sadly, this is no easy task, and takes half a year of planning with a small team of volunteers to ensure that we can make this free for our community.
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<div>Each year our festival travels to different areas of London where there are high rates of deprivation - this year we’re hosting our Free Books Festival at Big Penny Social in Walthamstow.
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<div>Why Walthamstow?
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<li>Waltham Forest (including Walthamstow) is currently the 12th most deprived borough in London
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<li>Child Poverty (2022–23): After housing costs, 38% of children in Waltham Forest live in poverty
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<li>Household Income (2023): Median full-time weekly earnings are £764.80, slightly below the London average (£796.30) but above the England average (£682.60)
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<div>The funds we raised back in 2020, have carried us throughout the years. However, as our community grows, so does our demand to support more people. We do this through connecting readers with books, creating career and networking opportunities for local people, working together with local organisations and residents’ associations to understand the needs of local communities and more.
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<div>In 2021, we started our Free Books Festival expecting only a couple of hundred attendees. Just last year, we sold over 3,000 entirely free tickets! Showing a real demand for free, accessible events for people in London.
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<div>Held over one day - 17th August - the Free Books Campaign festival programme will focus on storytelling in all of its forms - from visual arts to music, literature to gaming and more, our aim is to challenge the traditional format of literature festivals to engage a wider audience and create more readers from all walks of life. We are working with a number of grassroots organisations, bookclubs, agencies, brands and publishers who are all volunteering to ensure that we can create a vivid, exciting, engaging and accessible programme for everyone who walks through our doors - whether or not you consider yourself a reader, there’s a home for you here.
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<div>The funds will be spent on covering essential festival costs that help us remove financial barriers to access for our attendees. This includes:
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<li>Venue Hire
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<li>Our entirely-free bookstore - where you can browse and take home a brand new book at no cost
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<li>Storage facilities
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<li>Technology hires
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<li>Licensed lift operator fees &amp; other specialise requirements
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<li>Professional videographer
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<li>Professional photographer
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<li>Project fees to cover 6-months work on festival organising
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<li>Complimentary food &amp; refreshments for all attendees, volunteers and guests
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<li>Marketing &amp; PR materials to ensure we reach as many local people as possible
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<li>Event resources and operational costs i.e. logistics, removals, clean-up
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<li>Transportation
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<li>Wristbands
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<li>Furniture hire fees
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<li>And much more…
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<div><strong>Free Books Festival 2024 - A Quick Glance at Last Year</strong>
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<li>Sold-out festival, 3,000 entirely-free tickets
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<li>Thousands of brand new books given to attendees
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<li>50+ events, workshops, talks and activations
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<li>SAMPHA &amp; Caleb Femi Headline
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<li>Supported by Gymshark, Google, Daily Paper, VAMP, Tallawah, Chivas Regal, FANE, #MerkyBooks and more
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<div><strong>Free Books Library Senegal</strong>
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<div>This year we’re also fundraising for our next huge project, which’ll take us abroad to Dakar, Senegal. We’re raising funds to build a huge international library, where with the goal of increasing literacy rates, free access to literature, internet and technology and knowledge sharing.
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<div>As our team of dedicated volunteers grows, so does our ambitions and capacity to increase our social impact where community members are living with financial hardship. We’ll continue to be based in the UK, whilst we take our work overseas. This will be our biggest project to date, but we’re up for the challenge!!
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<div>One of the ways that we will raise funds for the Free Books Library, Dakar will be through donation-based ticket sales for Free Books Festival 2025. Attendees will have the option to select tickets that come with a donation e.g. £10, and the option to secure an entirely free ticket. This way we can ensure our festival remains open and accessible to everyone, whilst giving our community the opportunity to support this new project. Each year, our incredible attendees ask us to create more avenues for them to support our work through donations, and this way we hope to get you involved from the beginning!
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<div>Funds will be used for research, construction, legal fees, land acquisition and more. Stay tuned!
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<div>We’re a small team of passionate volunteers organising the festival in addition to our day-jobs. As they say, it takes a village, so we’re calling on you for support! Please consider making a financial contribution to our fundraiser if you are able to do so. We understand how challenging things are today, so if you cannot contribute financially, we ask that you please share this widely with your friends, family, networks, and any companies or brands who you think might be interested in supporting us. Every donation counts and every penny we raise goes directly into making our festival a reality and allows the campaign to continue operating.
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<div>Thank you so much for your time and continuous support - what started as a fundraiser back in 2020, has turned into a beautiful community and that’s due to the incredible kindness and care of people such as yourself.
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<div>I hope to see you there in August!
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<div>With love,
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<div>Sofia Akel and the whole Free Books Campaign team
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We're Raising Funds for our Free Books Festival

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