Fair Haven Bookstore Donates Books To Home-Bound Seniors

FAIR HAVEN, NJ — For seniors stuck at home — unable to see children and grandchildren, and with TV news depressing or downright scary — loneliness and boredom are serious challenges at this time. How about retreating into a good book?

Except nearly all libraries and book stores are currently closed.

That's why Fair Haven bookshop, River Road Books, is donating books to Bridge of Books, which is in turn delivering them to home-bound seniors who cannot go outside due to fear of the coronavirus. And they worked with a local Monmouth County network of doctors' offices, IMA Integrated Medicine Alliance, to ask their elderly patients what kinds of books they like to read.

"I was most touched by a 92-year-old woman who shared that she had just lost her husband, was down to her last book and that she was so thrilled to get a bag of books," said Bridge of Books Director Abby Daly, who personally drops off the books. "Thinking about how many Monmouth County seniors are isolated right now with little to no access to books ... As of today, the list of requests for books is close to 40!"

In normal times, Bridge of Books donates books to students across New Jersey.

However under the stay-at-home order, Bridge of Books shifted their focus to collecting books and delivering them to patients at the three New Jersey “pop-up” hospitals, the field hospitals in Secaucus, Edison and Atlantic City. That way, patients convalescing and recovering from the coronavirus could read a book to help the time go by.

At the same time, Daly received a call to see if the organization could help a particular local senior who was shut in and could not go to the library for the foreseeable future.

That’s when Daly contacted IMA – Integrated Medicine Alliance, which has doctors' offices in Hazlet, Shrewsbury, Tinton Falls and elsewhere in the area.

IMA sent an email to all their senior patients letting them know Bridge of Books would do a front porch drop-off of up to five books.

“Since libraries are closed and many seniors don’t have e-readers, we thought this would be a great way to safely bring books into our patients’ homes so they do not have to go out," said IMA’s president, Dr. Roger Thompson of Middletown.

To receive books, all IMA patients had to do was email Daly with the genre, title or style of book they would like to receive. Daly personally delivered them. River Road Books in Fair Haven was one of the book stores that donated.

To date, Bridge of Books has donated more than 20 bundles of books to senior citizen patients who use IMA.

“Even though our mission is to provide children’s books, I was happy to put out a call for adult books. The response was beyond overwhelming," said Daly. "In these challenging times, everyone needs access to books. We will get through this together.”