Published: July 14, 2008 09:09 am            

A million books

Christian Appalachian Project, Ken-Tenn team up to distribute books

By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor

What do you do with a million free books?

If you’re Jim Paul, you put out a call for help.

About one million books have been donated to the Christian Appalachian Project, whose largest of two warehouses is located just outside of Corbin in Knox County. There, hundreds of pallets of new books are sitting, waiting to be distributed to non-profit organizations who can use them.

The problem — not many agencies will have use for a 1,000 copies of a single book.

So CAP is giving many of the pallets to Ken-Tenn, a Williamsburg-based relief organization that will redistribute each pallet.

Ken-Tenn organizer Jim Paul talked with CAP Assistant Director Carol Parrett and agreed to help distribute the books — which continue to arrive — but he originally thought he was taking on a much smaller project.

“Whenever Carol said ‘do you want these books,’ for some reason I had it in my mind that it was 50,000 to 60,000 books,” Paul said. But when he revisited with Parrett, he learned his estimate was way off. “She said, ‘Where’d you come up with 50-60,000?... It’s more like a million.’ I thought it was five or six tractor trailer loads. There’s almost 50 tractor trailer loads. So Wendy (Allen) and I decided that if we could find a warehouse to store the books, that we could do it the right way.”

The “right way” includes breaking up the pallets of a single book so they can be of use to smaller organizations. A school may not have need for 1,000 copies of, say, the late George Carlin’s “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops” (just one of the book titles available), but they could use 1,000 books of various titles.

A friend of Wendy and Gary Allen, owners of Burkman Feed and Penske Rental in London, has donated a free warehouse space for Ken-Tenn to resort the books. With the help of volunteers, Paul hopes to have the books separated and ready for distribution within a month. Books will start with local distribution, and will then be given out to organizations across the 13 states in Appalachia.

“Jim and them are doing a wonderful thing,” Parrett said. “They are taking the books to their warehouse and they’re going to mix them up on the pallet... Probably, right now, there are probably 35-40 tractor trailer loads of books in this warehouse. That’s just books.”

CAP takes and distributes just about anything donated — books, clothes, furniture, household items and non-perishable food. Most of the products are overstock from stores and manufacturers. CAP even trucks most of the items to those who need it.

“I always tell people if we ain’t got it, we’re going to get it,” Parrett said. “If it’s out there, we’re going to get it sooner or later.”

CAP was founded in 1964 by a priest, Father Ralph Beiting, who was stationed in Kentucky after graduating from seminary. The organization started with an integrated boys summer camp, and eventually led to a number of other programs.

“Father had a vision. He had a vision of helping the children and the poor people in the Appalachian region,” Parrett said. “He had opened up the trunk of his car one day and it was full of clothes and he just started handing the clothes out there in Berea. Well, he gave all those clothes out in no time so he thought he would keep on doing it, and he kept on doing it and then he thought if I can give clothes away, I can give other things away, and it just grew from that... He didn’t care the ask anybody for anything, and he expected the people to give to him, and they did.”

Today, the distribution centers are just a small part of CAP’s outreach. CAP has more than 70 programs that include home repair, spousal abuse and child abuse prevention. CAP’s Corbin warehouse opened 12 years ago, with the main office in Hager Hill. Beiting, now in his 80s, is still involved in the program and serves as pastor of St. Jude Parish in Louisa, Ky.

This will be the first year CAP’s distribution center won’t be able to hold a school supplies giveway. Parrett said the company that normally supplies the goods has moved its production overseas.

“I don’t know what the school systems are going to do this year because they’ve depended on us for the last 12 years for binders and school supplies,” Parrett said. “They were so disappointed and we were, too. We get 10-15 calls a day about school supplies. “

But when it comes to books, CAP has a surplus.

The vast majority of the tomes have been donated by Brother’s Brother Foundation of Pittsburgh, Pa., and came from McGraw-Hill Books.

McGraw-Hill supplies books for public schools, so the donated books can go to a variety of non-profit or educational programs (private schools and universities, libraries, or literacy programs) but not public schools. That would interfere with the company’s sales.

Organizations must take at least 500 books on a pallet. If you have a registered non-profit organization that could use some of the books, or if your organization would like to help in the sorting of the books, contact Jim Paul at 524-1988.

        

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