DAYTON, Ohio (WKEF) — Dayton Book Fair Executive Director explains challenges of moving their operations and how the community can help.

Dayton Book Fair’s location on Embury Park Road is the center of their operations, but they have to find a new home before January 31st. They have run out of space to store books and for volunteers to sort them and process them for shipping, despite receiving more books and having more volunteers than ever.

“We have to have a central office. We have to have enough processing space here so that we can sort, pack, palletize, and ship books to our warehouse. Without this central location for our volunteers to work out of and for people to bring books to, we would not be able to continue,” said Larkin Vonalt, Executive Director of Dayton Book Fair.

Vonalt said due to their landlord’s circumstances, after about 20 years of a great relationship with them, they are having to move out much sooner than they thought. Finding enough space and raising funds to buy it have become quite the challenge, she said.

“We’re kind of looking in the range of 20,000 square feet. We figure it’s going to be at least, probably half a million to 750,000, somewhere in that range to actually get into another building that does what this building does,” she explained.

Vonalt said their annual book fair, the third-largest in the country, is what sustains their non-profit. It is still scheduled for November 7-9 this year and will not be impacted by their search for a new home. So even though they knew a move was coming and have been setting funds aside, they don’t have enough for the accelerated timeline. They are hoping for community support through their GoFundMe and the purchase of items at their downtown book store, Rabbit Hole Books.

“Given the kind of relationship we have with the community, I think it was really important to start off in a kind of grassroots way and let people feel like they’re a part of us, that we’re all working on this together,” she said.

Vonalt said the worst case scenario is no longer being able to accept donated books for online sale, but they are committed to doing whatever it takes to save the Dayton Book Fair.

You can visit Rabbit Hole Books on West First Street to donate in person. They also have a GoFundMe.