Bookchurch: Giving books a second life

Local organization gathers unwanted books, repurposes them

BY ZOË COSGROVE

As a child, Carpinterian Louis Force Torres would sneak into his father’s office to admire his book collection. He would lie on the floor and gaze at the shelves of books above, examining each title and reading what he could.

“That was the book church,” Torres told CVN. “That feeling of a kid, of just being able to read what they want.”

In March 2022, inspired by his childhood self, Torres founded Bookchurch, an organization in Carpinteria dedicated to recycling books and sharing the joy of reading. He and his volunteers collect books from organizations and private donors, categorize each title and deliver them to other local nonprofits.

Torres said he was inspired to start Bookchurch in part after seeing, through his publishing company Polyverse Publications, how many books go to waste.

“Many times, there are brand new books that arrive as advanced reader copies. There are books with a simple typo classified as misprints,” he said. “I would see these boxes of books just being tossed in the recycling bin or their garbage, and I said, ‘Why waste these books?’”

He considered storing donations from places with extra books, like Friends of the Carpinteria library, but it wasn’t until Torres took a walk on the bluffs that his idea for Bookchurch came to fruition.

“I saw a group of vans for the Wilderness Youth Foundation,” he said. “I looked them up, and I thought to myself, ‘I have these books on local plant life and these children’s books on animals, and I don’t want them to go to waste. Why don’t I call them up and see if they can use these books?’ And low and behold, they could.”

“I wanted to take back the word church. Bookchurch is non-religious,” Torres said. “It’s meant to get books to anyone who wants to read.”

With the funding from Polyverse, Torres formed a board with a group of his authors and filed the nonprofit paperwork for Bookchurch. Current board members include Guy Galzerano, Amy Plesetz, Tenley Force, Steve Larios and Andrea Fleck-Nisbet.

Galzerano, a Santa Barbara native and the chief financial officer for Bookchurch, told CVN he met Torres over 13 years ago. “He’s always reading, and then he’s writing too, and it’s our little church, that’s our religion,” Galzerano said. “It’s not Christianity. It’s nature and books.”

In July, Galzerano used his skills as a stonemason to build a portal around the free neighborhood library outside his house. “It’s a portal to your story. You’re reading and escaping from the stresses of real life,” he said. “It’s like a little sanctuary or a church, and that’s how we both feel, Louis and I.”

Bookchurch’s first donations came from The Thrifty Flea, a second-hand store in Carpinteria that went out of business late last year. “They donated their entire book collection to Bookchurch,”

Torres said. “We basically saved those books from a dumpster.”

In its first year of operation, Bookchurch repurposed 2,000 books, Torres added. Those books have gone to several local organizations, including Apples to Zucchini Cooking School in Santa Barbara and Roxanne’s A Wish and a Dream, a knit shop in Carpinteria.

“Some (books) were rare, hard to find, some were regionally based,” Torres said. “If a child or an adult or anyone interested in cooking finds a recipe from one of those cookbooks and makes it and loves it and talks about it, I’m happy.”

Bookchurch made a monetary donation to Planned Parenthood in September, which held its annual book sale at Earl Warren Showgrounds. Torres offered to take any excess books Planned Parenthood received and store them, returning them once the organization has additional warehouse space.

Bookchurch also donates books to prisoners through a program in Seattle, he added.

Torres said the organization hopes to work with Goodwill of Carpinteria and the Court Appointed Special Advocates of Santa Barbara County in the future.

Bookchurch is also in the process of applying for federal nonprofit status. “As soon as we receive that, we’ll be able to start a donor campaign to expand our facilities,” Torres said. “Then what we want to do is just reach out to more and more organizations and offer books.”

Torres stores Bookchurch donations in his garage on bookshelves that line an entire wall. He said pending grants would help cover the rent of a warehouse, fuel for deliveries, shipping costs and website fees.

“Now that we’re in our first official full year with our full board, we are making big strides,” Torres said. “The domestic organizations helping us that range from coast to coast want us to do articles, talk about this concept, and get others on board.”