Weekend book sale in Bodega Bay will benefit town’s school

Books enliven a school. In Bodega Bay, books also help keep a school alive.

This weekend volunteers will sell used books - all of them donated by residents of the highly literate village-on-the-bay - to bolster the tiny Bodega Bay School.

Along with books of all sorts, baked goods will be sold from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Bodega Bay Grange. Book sales proceeds will go the school’s PTA, and every dime raised in the bake sale will support the after-school program.

Bodega Bay School, with its two teachers for kindergarten through fifth grade and its fewer than 30 students, is a source of pride in the town. Two years ago, a proposal to close it as a cost-saving measure met with such passionate resistance, the board of the Marin-based Shoreline Unified School District didn’t even take up the prospect of a shutdown.

But money is tight at the school. Several years ago, staff librarian and classroom aide Carolyn Connors thought to hold an every-other-year benefit book sale.

She said the response of people living in and near Bodega Bay has been astounding. In 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014, donors dropped off boxes and stacks of books.

This year, Connors said, “I thought, ‘I’ve collected all the books in Bodega Bay.’ ” But in recent weeks, residents took to the school what Connors estimates to be 5,000 books.

“I’m always impressed that Bodega Bay is a community of readers,” said Connors, who continues to coordinate the fundraiser, staffed by an eager corps of volunteers, though she is retired from the school.

Some of the books donated this summer were sold last weekend. But the sale concludes this weekend, and Connors said plenty of books are left.

Hardbacks and high-quality paperbacks sell for $2 and all others, a buck.

Any leftover books will be shared with River Friends of the Library for an Aug. 25 book and baked-goodies sale at the Guerneville Regional Library.