I'm an entrepreneur and philanthropist at heart that enjoys taking on difficult challenges and making a difference. Before Trees For Books was an idea I started a new venture learning how to sell books on Amazon. I acquired books by purchasing them from estate sales in bulk. I quickly found out around 95% of the books are not able to be sold for various reasons and those books quickly piled up and there wasn't anywhere to actually take them. I didn't want to take them to GoodWill but somewhere that needs them or doesn't have the opportunity or ability to buy them. That's when Trees For Books was born and I started the mission of partnering with organizations like Eden Reforestation Projects to plant Trees for donated books and Citizens Caring For Children to give books to foster kids in need. I started this Project as a way to not only give back to the community but also help the environment at the same time. Trees For Books was founded in October of 2020 in my home located in Edmond and I'm still currently the only employee. I'm hoping that sometime in the future I'll be able to expand and handle 10x the volume it's currently at.

A book donation pickup is scheduled and picked up, books are individually inventoried, books are categorized and inventoried into genre specific "cases", and then listed on the site for organizations to request. The backend of the site is still being iterated on and will continue to get better and better. Currently donors are able to track their pickups, books and requests all within a dashboard. They're also able to see the status of each individual book they've donated and can even see where each of their books went.

There's currently a 3 tier request system which gives priority to specific types of organizations. For example Tier 3 is given to only verified non-profit organizations, Tier 2 is for organizations or individuals that help the community in some way. An example of this would be a teacher or a steward of a Little Free Library, and Tier 1 is for everyone else. Tier 3 can request books as soon as they're available, Tier 2 can request after 30 days, and Tier 1 after 60 days. This system allows non-profits to take priority over requests but also makes sure each and every book goes to a good home.

Revenue is generated partly from Tier 1 & 2 requests as well as books that are sold. That revenue keeps the business alive by paying for shipping for Tier 3 requests, planting trees, as well as software costs like the website, backend app, and other miscellaneous costs. I haven't taken 1 penny from Trees For Books, invested everything back in it, and plan to grow as fast as possible and reach as many people as I can!

The experience so far has been beyond overwhelming with the generosity of everyone and the difference that's already been made. So far we've received over 4,000 books, planted over 1,200 trees, and offset the printing of 75,000 books. The goal is to plant 1 million trees by 2030. Like I said above I'm currently running Trees For Books out of my home, one room for office/workspace and the other for warehouse storage. I'm quickly running out of room but hopefully if it makes sense to do so I hope to be able to acquire some kind of office space or small warehouse to continue expanding operations. Having this space would also allow others to assist too!