Unbanned Book Club
Across the United States, books are being banned from schools at an unprecedented rate. These bans are unfairly targeting authors and stories from diverse backgrounds, races, sexual orientations & gender identities. Not only that, but it’s an injustice to our youth. We believe that “when they ban books in schools, we un-ban them in the community.”
So we took it upon ourselves to form the The Unbanned Book Club— a movement made up of individuals determined to get banned books back into affected communities. We created branding for the grassroots movement, stickers to get the word out, posts to share on social media, a video that shed light on our intentions. But it wasn’t enough for us to just raise awareness on the issue, we knew to make actual impact, we had to physically make these banned books accessible.
To do so, we partnered with the Little Free Library, a non-profit book exchange that’s created a network of free-standing libraries in neighborhoods all across the country, to help distribute the banned titles. The Unbanned Book Club installed three permanent Unbanned Book Club branded Little Free Libraries in Duval County, FL, including one at the NAACP office. Additionally, with the help of publishers like Harper Collins and Penguin Random House, the UBC sent over 600 books to 2,000 Little Free Library Unbanned Book Club stewards across 38 states.
Our movement garnered over 400 press mentions and more importantly, is still unbanning books this day.
Related Work
Queer Life Space is a non-profit counseling agency that provides affordable, evidence-based mental health and substance abuse services for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Bay Area. At a time when the community is facing severe mental health challenges, we wanted to help them shine a spotlight on the need for support twelve months out of the year, not just in June. Partnering with SF’s Schlomer Haus Gallery and a team of local artists from the LGBTQIA+ community, we set out to make Pride more permanent by turning the trash and discarded debris of the SF Pride parade into enduring works of art. The art was unveiled at a gallery event, a month from the final day of Pride, with a live auction, and prints were available for purchase thru the campaign website WhatReamainsArt.com. All proceeds went to support emerging artists in the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as mental health services with Queer Life Space.
