I had the pleasure to travel to Southern California last week as part of the First Book team managing our Inland Empire distribution.  It was two and a half days of Hollywood glitz, glamour, sunshine… and distributing 250,000 children’s books donated by Disney Publishing to many fantastic organizations in the greater Los Angeles area as well as groups around the country.

Among the celebrity “sightings” were Dr. Martha, Kellie, and the rest of the Book Buddies team who came out to support the distribution, and show us around the town.  I was amazed to learn the story of how a family business of local health clinics came to establish Book Buddies, part of the Molina Foundation, a national network that builds libraries and puts books directly into the hands of children from low-income families.

Special thanks also to Lorraine, Carrie, Ozzy, and the rest of the staff of the United Way of Inland Empire, who hosted us in their warehouse, recruited overwhelming volunteer support (don’t we look great in our “Live United” shirts?), and somehow arranged perfect weather as we as we loaded up vehicles of recipient groups with their brand new books.