If you are interested in receiving books through this project, you will be referred to the flagship school in your area (if one has already been established).
Only flagship schools receive donations directly from the donors.
The flagships distribute books to schools in their geographic area who are willing to volunteer in the project
and they handle all communications with the donor communities.

     I look forward to hearing from you.

     Yours sincerely,
     Your name

Please read the information below and determine if you would wish to apply to be a flagship school:

Books for Israel is an all-volunteer grassroots project.
No one at any level of this effort receives a salary or material compensation for their work.
Schools and school personnel who join us in this project participate as fellow volunteers.

Flagship schools receive books directly sent to them by the donors abroad.
Please remember that this project is only designed to provide second hand English language children's literature
and related language learning materials, and not for soliciting other kinds of donations.

In all cases the books are second hand, but good to excellent quality, and are screened by volunteers running the book drives.
Books are screened against pornography, racism, and violence. Our donors are all asked to screen out any books that are torn, marked up, or otherwise damaged. Probably 99 percent of the materials that will be sent are authentic literature. Only rarely will book packets sent include ESL readers, although a number of the books will likely be phonetics based readers. This is simply because the donor population can only offer the books that they themselves have in their own libraries.

The flagship school in each area of Israel must oversee that the donated books become registered property
of school libraries and English rooms.
Absolutely none of the books are ever for private property -- they are the school property for use by the teachers and children.

The flagship school is responsible for regular and frequent e-mail communications with the donors,
for sending messages of thanks and holiday greetings, and for hosting visits of donors to the flagship community.  
The more our flagship coordinators make human contact with the donor communities, the more they receive ongoing supplies
of good quality books. The donor drives are made up of good-hearted people who are volunteering their time to help
in addition to their jobs and family commitments. They are teachers, parents, community leaders, clergy, school children,
librarians, boy scouts, etc. Running a book drive is physically demanding work as well as an effort in logistics, communications,
and fundraising. Our donors should be appreciated for the efforts they make on behalf of our children.

Responsibilities for communications made by the flagship school must be assigned to a person
with good basic English communication skills and who has a willingness to communicate with the donors regularly.
This person is known as "the flagship coordinator."
The flagship coordinator basically functions as a public relations person on behalf of the school, the local community,
and Israel as a whole.
The person entrusted with this responsibility will need an e-mail address and must check their e-mail for messages
from the donor community and the coordinators of this project in Israel and Washington DC  and must respond promptly.
In addition to notifications of books sent, messages will also include correspondence essential to building up
a supportive relationship between the donor community and the flagship cluster.

If a flagship coordinator fails to keep up regular correspondence with their donors,
 the flagship coordination may be moved to another school.
The Books for Israel Israel coordinators reserve the full right to redirect donors if they are being ignored.

To apply for flagship status, the proposed flagship school must bring in  at least those other schools needed  to cover the spectrum from primary to senior high school. These are called the “initial partner schools”.
For example, if your school is a senior high, you would need to bring in a junior high and a grade school serving the same population.  In this way, all incoming books will be divided up amongst libraries by reading levels.

Please note: while there are several schools clustered under the flagship, the flagship coordinator at the flagship school remains the direct contact person responsible for regular communications with the donor communities.

In addition, to apply for flagship status, the proposed flagship school must bring in at least two other schools
who are serving one or more different religious, ethnic, or language groups OTHER than your own.
These two or more schools are called the "adopted schools."
This project encourages the cooperation between diverse communities living in geographic proximity with one another
in the interests of unity, advancement for all our children, and peace.

Click HERE to download
the FLAGSHIP APPLICATION FORM
(word document)

E-mail the completed application form to:
The Books for Israel Project (Israel), attention Jade and Ilan Bar-Shalom: b4i2002@gmail.com

Please DO NOT print out the form to send by regular mail or fax and please refrain from sending your information inside the body of e-mail letters. Because we are all volunteers,
we need you to provide your information in a format that can readily be processed.

Thank you,

Ilan and Jade Bar-Shalom
Volunteer Coordinators
The Books for Israel Project, Israel