BookGive was founded in 2018 by Nicole Sullivan, a well-known Denver book lover and business owner. Nicole is extremely passionate about literacy and the right for everyone to have access to great books, and so she felt that a nonprofit which gave away new and near-new books would increase book access for all members of the community.

In 2019, Nicole purchased a 1940s gas station located at 4890 Lowell Blvd. It was rebranded as BookGive, and volunteers began free book distribution to individuals and organizations throughout the seven-county Denver Metro region. In 2022, a small space within the station was converted into our free book room, allowing the community to come in and pick out books for themselves.

Since its inception, the organization has been almost entirely volunteer run. More than 80 people volunteer actively, either at the station, as delivery drivers bringing books to our partners, or representing BookGive in the community at special events. One such event is the We Don’t Waste Mobile Markets, where volunteers distribute 300+ books on a monthly basis alongside other organizations which are there to provide food and basic goods to the attendees.

Many of our books come from individual donations, but we also have relationships with publishers and bookstores who are moving books off their shelves for any number of reasons. Additionally, we are often the beneficiary of book drives held by community members and businesses, for which we are extremely thankful.

Currently, we average about 75 partner organizations per month, most of which are nonprofits serving people for whom books are hard to come by. Our partners include low-income senior centers, title I schools, daycare centers, clinics, hospitals, facilities for the incarcerated, youth centers, laundromats, food banks, transitional housing centers, and more.

Monthly, station volunteers process about 20,000 books. About 2/3 of those are stamped and shelved for distribution, and the rest are shared with an organization called DreamBooks, who accept books we cannot use for our purposes, still keeping them out of the landfill.

Books we keep are then boxed according to the requests from our partner organizations, where volunteer delivery drivers pick them up and take them to their destination. Since 2019 when BookGive opened its doors, more than half-a-million books have been donated to partner organizations or taken from the shelves of our free book room.

Because the organization runs on volunteers, our budget is very lean. In fact, if you were to average out the annual budget based on a per-book distribution, it costs about .90 cents per book to keep our garage doors open. Still, we do have operational expenses that can’t be overlooked.

We hope that knowing more about the story of BookGive has inspired you, and invite you to consider a donation to this worthy organization! The kind and powerful letters and notes we receive from recipients of books from BookGive let us know the importance of what we do, such as this testimonial, which we recently received from an inmate at the Downtown Denver Detention Center:

My name is William, and I am unfortunately in jail at Denver's Downtown Detention Center. I would like to give a heartfelt thank you for all of the wonderful books you have donated to our facility. Before today, our library consisted of old, beat up, and torn books, but because of you, we now have several hundreds of newer books at our finger tips! While TV and tablets are good to watch, there's nothing quite like being able to escape our current reality than having a good book to read! I speak on behalf of many inmates when I say thank you for your donation of books and we hope that you will continue to donate more books for us in the future. Because of you, you have helped myself and others be able to cope with our harsh realities a little easier! Thanks again, A Grateful Reader

Half a Million Stories Gala

Join us in celebration of 500,000 books gifted by BookGive!