Balancing the Books
Annual Book Sale Aims to
Help Refund Planned Parenthood
By Jim Buckley | Photos by Ingrid Bostrom
September 4, 2025
An overhead view of the Book Sale | Credit: Jim Buckley
When you are heading into a fight, you need heroes on your side. The tens of thousands of people on the Central Coast who, thanks to the One Big Bad Bastard of a Bill, might be losing access to the vast array of medical care offered by Planned Parenthood are in one helluva fight … so Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, and Captain Underpants are coming to Santa Barbara — and they’re bringing friends.
Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
Charles Dickens will come out swinging, while Dr. Seuss will be on board. Michelle Obama, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, and ol’ Franz Kafka will show up to help. Ernest Hemingway is strapping on his boxing gloves, Stephen King is about to get really scary, and Freida McFadden is itching to jump in. And with studs like Jack Reacher, Wonder Woman, and Sherlock Holmes, to say nothing of Miss Marple and the PAW Patrol on hand … the fight is on — with books as the weapons.
And that’s where you come in.
Books by those authors (and featuring those characters) and thousands more from the wide worlds of fiction and nonfiction will be on sale starting September 11 at the 51st annual Mary J. McCord Planned Parenthood Book Sale at the Earl Warren Exhibition Hall. Books, puzzles, CDs, DVDs, vinyl, and more will be on sale through September 21, most at very low prices. Throughout the sale, which is literally unique in the United States, we can all be on the side of the heroes — plus go home with stacks of awesome, low-priced, gently used, and carefully curated books and more. (Note: Donations for the 2025 Book Sale are closed; the Book Sale asks that you save them up and bring them to the cute white shed at the Book Sale warehouse at 5726 Thornwood Drive starting October 1.)
Buy More Books!
The reason for the dire need for funds, as the Independent and every other outlet with any understanding of the truth has been reporting, is that the federal “government” is trying to defund Planned Parenthood by not allowing Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) to be used to pay for any treatments at Planned Parenthood clinics. Once the bill was signed, of course, lawsuits began, and as of this writing, an injunction was in place that prevented that part of the bill from going into force. But the future is vastly uncertain. If the Medicaid cuts are fully enacted, then Planned Parenthood Central Coast (PPCC) might lose as much as 70 percent of its funding.
“So, what we’re saying is that people should buy an awful lot of books,” says Lindsay Soleimani, vice president of philanthropy for PPCC. “If the Book Sale could have its best year ever, that would be a big help.”
The need is great. The tri-county PPCC group serves more than 30,000 people annually.
“There’s a huge need for health care on the Central Coast,” notes Luz Reyes-Martín, PPCC vice president of advocacy and engagement. “We have made a commitment and investment throughout the Central Coast to address that. In 2021, we opened a brand-new health center in Oxnard. And we [recently] opened a brand-new health center in Santa Maria that has doubled their capacity to serve patients in North County.”
Book sale volunteer Alan Kasehagen | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
“The sad part is the reason we have to be here in the first place,” notes Alan Kasehagen, a longtime Book Sale volunteer. “I spent 30 years in the county health department as their human resources manager. And so, I got a really good exposure to health care for a certain segment of the population that can’t always afford health care. And to me, it’s just really sad that for the type of care that Planned Parenthood offers, that it’s not more readily accessible. So, the fact that we can have the only book sale in the entire U.S. [that directly helps] the organization, that’s a really big deal.”
Should the worst happen, the local Planned Parenthood staff is already working on plans to fill the gap. Along with the Book Sale, they are re-doubling efforts for planned gifts, seeking more from current donors, looking for state funds, and possibly tapping reserves (and they note that people with private insurance are welcome at Planned Parenthood for its dozens of different areas of care). The chapter’s annual budget is north of $34 million. The Book Sale earned more than $500,000 in 2024. All the books at Earl Warren won’t fill that funding gap, of course, but it’s worth fighting the battle.
“The soft benefits [of the Book Sale] are incalculable,” adds Soleimani. “The sale attracts a lot of attention and interest. And it is such a joyful experience for people who come. And the book sale volunteers are the most enthusiastic and joyful people.”
Leading the fight to help PPCC are the 200-plus volunteers who make the incredible annual sale happen. They know very well what is at stake, too. The defunding news is already filling the Book Sale storage shelves.
“We’re seeing real growth in the donation of books,” says 2025 Book Sale chair Jojo Snyder. “We will have more books for sale this year than ever before. We have more volunteers, too. We certainly hope that the bad news nationally will spur more people than ever to come to the sale.”
Snyder got involved three years ago via a friend who formerly owned the beloved Earthling bookstore. Snyder’s varied careers in computer technology, winemaking, and house-flipping coincidentally gave her all the skills she’d need to lead the operation. But of all those many careers, she says, “This is the most satisfying work, the best thing I’ve ever done. I think I spent my whole life leading to doing this job. I’m so happy and engaged!”
The variety of books is incredible. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
Something for Everyone
Longtime Book Sale attendees know that the Earl Warren exhibition space will be filled with endless tables of books in more than 50 categories. There is a huge children’s section, the biggest genre at the sale. Fiction lovers will find tables for mystery, science fiction, and literature, along with many recent bestsellers at knock-down prices. About two dozen nonfiction sections include everything from art, biography, and cooking to science, self-help, and travel. In recent years, the sales of music CDs, vinyl records, and puzzles and games have boomed, and there will be tons of choices in those sections, too. There are signed first editions, rare and antique books, sheet music, and, oddly, a collection of rare beer steins — not to mention PPCC Book Sale T-shirts and mugs!
Opening Night on Thursday, September 11, is the only time that admission is charged (that first night turns into huge sales to book dealers who come from near and far). Every other day of the Book Sale is free to enter.
Snyder is quick to point out that tables are re-stocked almost daily, so that repeat visitors will find things that they might have missed on their first time through.
“It’s a great place to let your brain enjoy the experience of new subjects,” she adds. “Plus, we have lots of gifts for really reasonable prices. You can just go from place to place and subject to subject and wander off as you wish and indulge all your senses in books. If you love books, if you want to learn things, and you want to interact with a crowd of people that really get it — it’s perfect. And it’s so happy. It’s the best happy place to be for those 10 days!”
“My favorite thing is to see whole families coming together; it’s like a literary free-for-all,” says Soleimani. “We see lots of families, and you feel good about passing on that joy of reading and exploring and finding new things to another generation.”
Debbie Armstrong is a former Book Sale chair and now the co-manager of the literature category, as well as a leader of the rough sorting team (we’ll explain that in a minute). She loves seeing young people on a date night at the sale. “I see teenagers and kids in their twenties holding hands showing each other books to read. They’re bonding over something that has real value,” she said with a smile. “Those are the memories that keep me going.”
An overview of the sorting space | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
An Efficient Operation
Books reach the sale year-round through donations dropped off at its warehouse location on Thornwood Drive in Goleta or through estates that donate masses of books. The boxes, bags, and truckloads all go through a well-rehearsed series of steps, designed to get the right books to the right places … for the right price. (Again, donations are closed for this year’s Book Sale; the shed will reopen October 1.)
Dozens of volunteers on the Rough Sort team spend many hours each week sorting the donated materials, going through them to both remove the dross and find the gems, and put them into genre categories in time for the sale. (Full disclosure: I should mention that rough sorting is my main Book Sale volunteer gig. It’s hard to describe the joy that this book-lover gets when confronted with a vast table full of boxes and bags of books.) Rough Sort volunteers distribute the books into boxes divided among the 50-plus Book Sale categories, organized not unlike the best bookstores.
Each category’s volunteer manager examines each of their books and scans them all. The scanning is important. A bespoke app helps find which books have prices beyond what the Book Sale would charge. Anything that would go for more than a few dollars at the Earl Warren sale is shuttled off to find its highest price online. A separate team of volunteers lists and ships the titles to Amazon, eBay, American Book Exchange, and other online sites.
“We’re really one ‘company’ with two divisions: Book Sale and Amazon etc.,” notes Snyder. “The Amazon group sells books year-round via that platform, and they are now about half of our annual revenue. So, we never stop selling year-round!”
Books that don’t make the Amazon cut are packed into a trio of huge shipping containers on the warehouse property, destined for Earl Warren in September.
It is a constant flow of books and more, calling for a kind of dedication that is somewhat awe-inspiring. But, again, the volunteers do the work because they love the cause and they love the products. Books have a kind of mysterious glow about them; people just can’t seem to throw them out. The saddest part about rough sorting is facing a beloved book that is just too water-damaged or chewed-up to save. Some books have content whose shelf life is well past, too (top stock market picks for 1992, for example). But even those soon-to-be-recycled books are a symbol of the power that a story can have. The disgusting rise of book-banning just makes the need to hold onto our books that much more important. Don’t worry — the Book Sale will have a big table filled with “Banned Books.”
Book sale volunteers (from left) Melinda McKenna, Elizabeth Downing, and Jeanette Mustacic | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
It’s the People
The sale has grown tremendously in the past 51 years since its founding as a humble collection of used books gathered by a quintet of founders. The move to the Earl Warren complex in 2017 kickstarted even more growth. Innovative chairs and volunteers came along who transformed the whole group. Fran Antenore, a longtime teacher and education technology executive, introduced a host of new organizational gems, including training and technology use. She also created an extensive Planned Parenthood Book Sale history. Amy Collins (and later Eliot Jacobson) added tech expertise, and Steve Colwell spearheaded the move into year-round online sales that has doubled annual income. The move in 2017 to a rented warehouse on Thornwood Drive in Goleta added rocket fuel to the sale’s growth, too. In 2023, the building’s owner, a longtime volunteer named Judy Stapelmann, donated the whole building to Planned Parenthood.
The right person for the job just seems to always appear when needed. Need a graphic designer? There’s Kiki Yakamura, the high school daughter of volunteer Myra Yakamura. Need folks to move all those heavy boxes of books? Meet the Schleppers, a crew of devoted lifters. Heck, in July, former house-flipper Snyder pitched in, along with other skilled volunteers, to repair and replace drywall and flooring damaged in a flood at the warehouse building. Though about a dozen boxes of books were ruined, the work paused just long enough to sweep out the water and keep sorting.
Of course, there is a need among Book Sale volunteers for skills beyond just loving books. People like Kasehagen, who has been helping out since 2009, are vital to the cause.
“I’m an organizer and I like to make things,” he says. “So, I’ve been able to help set up this warehouse as a facilities manager and play a part at the Book Sale keeping things safe and organized, as well as hand-make lots of the shelves and storage units. And here’s a shout-out to Mammoth Movers, who have become great partners in getting our books from here at the warehouse to Earl Warren every year.”
Book sale volunteer Greg Armstrong | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
For Armstrong and many others, the volunteers are the best thing about the whole experience. “The folks here just all seem so focused on getting books of any kind into the hands of people,” she says. And the idea of volunteerism is very strong here. It’s that spirit of, ‘How can I make a difference to my community?’
“I also just love being around the books. I love books! I love cleaning the books. I love sorting through the books. I love seeing what comes through. It’s a bit of a treasure hunt sometimes, looking for one particular book or author to come through,” said Armstrong.
Whatever literary or informational treasure you are seeking, you’ll find it at the Book Sale. But you’ll also discover books that you had no idea you would love. Ask the volunteers on the sale floor for ideas; bring a friend who can point you to a book you haven’t read; bring your book group to research upcoming reads. Bring the kids, of course! That sense of treasure-hunting combined with the knowledge that you’re literally helping to save lives makes a trip to the sale a win-win.
And finally, who knows? You might become the customer in this story told by Amazon crew co-manager and former chair Teri Brown. “On one Opening Day a couple of years ago, I was near the cashier station, and this woman walked in and stood right in the middle of the aisle. She twirled around in a complete circle, put her arms in the air, and shouted, ‘This is my favorite day of the year!’ ”
Let’s hope there is a lot of loving, cheering, and selling at this year’s Fair. Planned Parenthood and 30,000 of your neighbors need your help in this fight — now more than ever.
Book sale volunteer Loren Solin | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom
After-Hours Party!
New this year on Friday, September 12, 7-9 p.m., is a special after-hours event for book- and craft-lovers. For a $30 entry ticket, you get into the book sale with no crowds, enjoy DJ Darla Bea, grab a mocktail and some snacks, and take part in crafts that include bedazzling your favorite book or decorating a condom case — to say nothing of being around book-loving folks. Tickets are available at booksale.ppcentralcoast.org.
Book sale volunteer Martin Dent, hard at work | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom