Help US Find and fund our new home

Today we had wonderful news from the Gerald M. and Carole A. Family Foundation that we are a recipient of a generous grant from them for $10,000. Combined with donations from GoFundMe (around $6100), fundraising through Rabbit Hole Books ($3000) private donations ($600) and t-shirt sales ($170) we’ve raised just shy of $20,000 in two weeks. We are so very grateful for how kind people have been– combined with what we have already socked away, we’re up to nearly $80k.

It’s hard to say how much we need– more, clearly, than $80,000 but buildings that sold for $300,000 a couple of years ago are now pushing $1M. We haven’t hit on quite the right spot yet, but we continue to look.

We need at least 20,000 square feet, with a loading dock and some office space– plus parking for volunteers and access for a box truck. And if we can help Preservation Dayton by doing all of this in a great old building, so much the better.

You can help us by spreading the word, and think good thoughts. And if you haven’t yet contributed, that would be great too. Our heartfelt thanks.

We appreciate you coming to this site to see how we’re trying to save the Dayton Book Fair.

Generally, we would not be in a position of asking for money. We’ve never asked for money– the book fair has always been self-sufficient, and took the proceeds from selling books and gave it away to other local non-profits.

But now we are losing the home where we’ve been for more than twenty years, and we are worried.

We outgrew the building a few years back, but we’ve been making it work for the time being, with the idea that we would have a few years to both amass some funding and find the perfect spot.

Now we have until January 31, 2026 to move lock, stock and barrel to another location.

Rabbit Hole Books can continue to exist for a little while. We will certainly have the book fair in November 2025, but as for the next year . . . well, all bets are off.

We’ve established this site to help keep interested folks apprised of our efforts, but we will also post updates on our regular Dayton Book Fair site as well as our Facebook pages.