The future of the Philly Book Bank is imperiled as it may lose its space at Martin Luther King High

Tens of thousands of Philadelphia children get free books via the Philly Book Bank, a nonprofit that has operated out of Martin Luther King High for more than two decades.

Now, the Philadelphia organization’s position is precarious at best as it struggles to reach an agreement with the school district to continue using part of the school building, its executive director said.

“I can’t see how we get past our current challenges in this space,” said Anne Keenan, the executive director.

The organization has been long-known in the community for years, with teachers, families, and community groups browsing its shelves or picking up boxes of new and gently used books, all for free. Teachers are eligible for up to 4,000 books a year — a jackpot in an under-resourced district where educators often pay hundreds of dollars or more out of their own pockets to make sure students have what they need.

The book bank has long occupied part of King, a sprawling school in East Germantown built for 2,500 students with ample open space. King now educates fewer than 550.

The deal to bring the Philly Book Bank to King predates Keenan’s arrival in 2017 and is facing scrutiny from district officials.

The Philadelphia School District is examining the use of the space at King for the book bank and “is committed to prioritizing reading and literacy” district-wide, said spokesperson Monique Braxton, citing the district’s purchase of a new English language arts curriculum and its “active literacy spaces.” (It currently has just three full-time certified school librarians for 216 schools, though a few dozen other schools operate makeshift libraries with volunteers.)

The book bank flew under the radar of district officials for a long time, until 2023, when damaged asbestos briefly closed the school, Keenan said. The organization had taken over several rooms in what used to be an industrial arts corridor — it had a sorting room and large spaces for storage and browsing, but after the environmental scare, school system officials “seemed to be aware that we were there for the first time.”

That year, officials began to talk about needing a memorandum of understanding or another legal agreement. Keenan said she understood, and the organization purchased extra insurance per the district’s request.

In January 2024, the fire marshal visited the space and identified some code violations, though Keenan said no report was ever shared with her. For a time, it effectively stopped operating — it had to shrink its space, stop allowing visitors inside, and give away a chunk of its inventory.

These days, the book bank is functioning, though not at full capacity. No one can visit to browse its shelves; people must fill out a form to indicate what kind of books they want, then volunteers box them up and members of the community pick them up outside King.

Most recently, Keenan said, she had a productive meeting in which district officials said the Philly Book Bank might be able to stay, but made no promises. And the conditions were daunting, she said — the book bank could have shelves, but only in certain parts of the room, and they had to be secured to the floor, but the district had to secure them.

“We have nothing in writing,” Keenan said. “I’m not sure how effective we can be — we’ve lost a lot of our space. We’re not feeling all that welcome.”

School leaders have told Keenan that they want the book bank to stay, but it has faced months of uncertainty and lots of obstacles.

“Everyone’s saying they’re trying to get to yes, but that means no is a possibility. They can say all they want, but actions speak louder than words,” she said.

The book bank operates on a shoestring budget ― about $80,000 last year. It is volunteer-run, and it never budgeted for capital expenses or rent because it had free space — virtually all of its funding comes from grants, and most of those are for book purchases only.

It’s possible a philanthropist or a centrally located organization with space to donate could step forward to help, given the city’s literacy crisis and the district’s struggles with reading proficiency. Just 35% of students met state standards in reading in 2023-24.

But Keenan is not at all sure that will happen. So the organization is trying crowdfunding.

She understands that the district needs to follow codes and procedures and that safety is key.

“But,” she said, “it’s just been challenging knowing where we’re going to be tomorrow, in the fall.”

The possible loss has alarmed those who count on the book bank.

“Philly Book Bank have provided books for my often underserved and overlooked community at Broad and Olney, plus the marginalized immigrant communities that we serve around Philly,” wrote someone who signed an online petition urging Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. to keep the bank at King. “Through the Book Bank I was able to get a grant from First Book to further foster literacy and learning in various languages and diverse ethnicities.”

Another poster wrote: “Please keep the Philly Book Bank at MLK open. Through them, I was able to supply my students with a classroom library at a time when I had no books and insufficient funds to purchase the books.”

For Waring Elementary in Spring Garden, the Book Bank is essential, said another user, who helps run its school library — which is staffed entirely by volunteers and filled, in part, with the bank’s free books.

“So many Philly schools and Philly families rely on this resource being accessible, stable, and HERE,” the Waring poster said.

King students used to be regulars at the book bank — some helped out, and others showed up looking for books.

“But now, we can’t have the students come down,” Keenan said. “That’s horrible — some of them are so thirsty for the books we have to offer.”

Last year, King was a site for summer programming, and the book bank was so popular volunteers had to draw up a schedule to make sure the space was not overwhelmed. Kids still knock on the door, Keenan said, but volunteers go out into the hallway to explain they cannot come in.

“The kids need books,” Keenan said. “They don’t have school libraries. The public libraries aren’t open much. The city needs this.”

Braxton, the district spokesperson, said the school system is “in the planning stages and conducting an analysis of libraries, digital, and instructional media centers in the district. We are also reevaluating the space used at Martin Luther King High School for the Book Bank.”

King has a library space, but no librarian.