First Book-Greater Richmond, VA

About Us

First Book provides new books to children in need, addressing one of the most important factors affecting literacy – access to books. An innovative leader in social enterprise, First Book has distributed more than 65 million free and low-cost books to disadvantaged children and the programs that serve them.

First Book-Greater Richmond is an all-volunteer local Advisory Board formed in November 2005 to serve children in the greater Richmond metropolitan area. Volunteers on our Board include individuals from a wide cross-section of our community.

Our primary goal is to work with existing literacy programs in the Richmond metropolitan area to distribute books to children who, for economic reasons, have little or no access to books. We focus on children at the preschool, elementary school, and middle school levels and provide them with brand-new, high-quality books.

The Greater Richmond Advisory Board has the following goals:

• identify the literacy needs of low-income children in the greater Richmond area
• identify community-based literacy programs that support these children
• raise funds to support the purchase of new books
• select literacy programs to receive book grants
• recruit members to our Advisory Board who represent a professional and cultural cross-section of the Richmond community.

To date, our Board has provided grants totaling over $35,000 to 12 Recipient Groups in the Richmond area, resulting in over 14,000 new books being given to deserving children.