A charity that was formed about a year ago has surpassed its original goal to the point where it is now looking at expanding to different cities and possibly out of province one day. Books For Crooks’ original goal was to collect about 700 books for the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, which goes through about 50 to 100 of its more popular books a month through usage and attrition. Book For Crooks organizer, Kevin Sorokowski, says the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra has been a great help, donating boxes of books regularly.
The next step is going through the legal process of becoming an official charity which can hand out tax receipts and then from there, possibly expand from donating to the Saskatoon Correctional Centre to also donating books to other jails.
Becoming a charity costs money though, so that’s where a ticketed event on the 17th at Amigos comes in. You can find out more information on the Books For Crooks Facebook site. If you are thinking of donating books, Sorokowski suggests appropriate genres would be self-help, young adult, how-to, narrative fiction and biographies.