Big Rig Books hauls reads for the kids

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Updated May 22, 2013

Big Rig Books 2000 Peterbilt 379 and bookmobile trailer

“Big Rig Books” is the name of a nonprofit organization founded by Chicago-area-based John C. Gervase. The killer 2000 Peterbilt 379 Class 8 bookmobile above is their truck. Gervase and company use it “to pull a [the pictured] 36-foot bookmobile trailer that holds up to 7,000 books. We distribute free books to underprivileged children to foster and encourage recreational reading.”

The organization emerged out of another philanthropic effort Gervase founded in 2009 for love of trucking and community service called Haulin’ for Humanity “that provided low-cost trucking services to other nonprofits and churches,” as he writes on the BRB website. After doing some work for local food banks and other organizations, his focus shifted to books when he realized through research and personal experience that there was more to encouraging literacy in children than the notion that “if a person wants to read, they would just go get a book,” he says. “I also thought that children who go to school would automatically be able to read.  How wrong and naive I was.”

You can read more about his story on the BRB site, and know that he’s always looking for book and/or monetary donations to “keep on the road serving.”

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