Community rallies to find new homes for hundreds of children’s books found in Minneapolis dumpster

Usually, children browse for books in a library or bookstore. On Thursday, families went browsing in a dumpster in Minneapolis after staff at Bryn Mawr Elementary School threw out hundreds of old children’s books.

After a photo of the dumpster filled to the brim began circulating in popular Twin Cities social media groups, people came to the school to salvage what they could.

A Minneapolis Public School district spokesperson said schools routinely remove and replace books and other materials when they are worn out or are no longer relevant.

"Books have an expiration date due to use, damage, inaccuracy, and environmental factors such as mold and dust," a statement read. "Just like we don’t provide students with expired food, we try not to provide expired books."

But online, people questioned why the books — many of which appeared to be in decent shape — were not donated.

"At first I was just sort of confused and shocked," said Natalie Taylor, who originally found the books in the dumpster Wednesday night and posted a photo on Facebook.

Taylor, who has a toddler, dug through the top of the pile and found several classics from her own childhood.

"I have a bucket bike and I filled it up twice and I feel like I barely even made a scratch," she said.

Word spread quickly online and people began showing up at the dumpster to re-home the books that they could.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the district said the books behind Bryn Mawr Elementary "did not meet our standards" for donation, adding that due to the pandemic, many nonprofits are not accepting donations or have limited what they will take.

"When I saw books in a dumpster that brought out a whole lot of sadness," Twin Cities realtor Cheryllyne Vaz said.

Vaz said growing up poor in India, books were cherished. Many times, the only books that were available to her were second-hand donations that came to her Catholic school from England.

"My love of reading would not have come if not for the opportunity to read the books that I got, that were donated to our church and my school as a child," she said. "These books gave me a way out."

On Thursday, as the last of the books were removed from the dumpster, Vaz and her young son climbed in and looked around one more time.

"I’m pretty sure every little library in the Twin Cities is now stocked up," she said.

In addition to the explanation, MPS said it needed to "do a better job of educating" the community on why books are removed and replaced, and acknowledged the need for other ways to recycle used materials.

"We need to establish a better process for offering public access to partially damaged books or books that don’t meet our standards rather than just removing and recycling them," the statement read.