01/19/2025
Resurrected Books is closed forever. The books are gone, the shelves are bare. An eerie echo hangs in the air. It’s been ten years since it opened and we’ve sold a great many books, though we can’t really say for sure. The selling of books was never the main thing. Rather, putting books in the right hands was always the goal.
It had become a small hub of activity in its time and people came to chat as much as they came to find a book. We tried little things like adding coffee or popcorn to draw people in, but there are plenty of places to get coffee in this town. It wasn’t the main focus.
When the pandemic hit and everything shut down, so did Resurrected Books and it stayed closed for almost two years. Sadly, we could not recover from the effects of the pandemic. It had taken some of our volunteers, some of our customers, and some of our donors. People we treasured for more than the dollars they brought to the store, but for their conversations and their stories and their generosity.
We served the community in ways the community needed, even if the community didn’t know it. More than just a book store, we were also a place where people could bring un-wanted books. Through arrangements with others, we could recycle books that were un-sellable, or they could be donated to any variety of ministries with the same goal as ours: to put books in reader’s hands.
The money we collected in our store helped us with small missions. We bought food and assembled MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) packs for hungry homeless people. We helped to supply the coat closet with warm garb, and we helped our schools with supply drives and donations or our own.
Resurrected Books was part of the Reedley First United Methodist Church. As such, the fate of one is tied to the fate of the other. But both church and book store made local missions the first priority right to the end.
We offer our sincerest thanks and heartfelt gratitude to all those who participated. Our volunteers, who would serve shifts of a few to several hours. Our donors, sometimes bringing in a bag of books, and other times asking if we can pick up a truckload of them. They kept us supplied and kept the shelves brimming. Our customers, of course the backbone of any business is the customers. Without them, there is no purpose to any of it. We also enjoyed supporters; members of the church who allowed us to exist and even flourish for a time. People in the community who drew attention to us on social media and elsewhere. We thank the teachers who brought us last-year’s leftovers and we thank the young parents helping their children to be readers.
We thank everyone for allowing us to fulfill a few needs in the community and we will miss many aspects of that in the coming years. A book store is hard to run and it took a lot of physical effort by many strong backs to keep it going. But the payoff was always worth while with the conversations we had with those who came to visit.
But more than that, we will miss the opportunity to serve; to make our community stronger by making individual lives better. We’ll miss taking those boxes of school supplies to the teachers, we’ll miss hanging a fresh batch of coats in the coat closet, and we’ll miss being able to feed someone who came to us with hope.
But the shelves are empty now and it’s time to go home.
