Fitger’s Bookstore Fundraiser Provides Books With Diversity For Duluth Schools

DULUTH, Minn. – This past holiday season The Bookstore at Fitger’s held a fundraiser and collected $1,500 for new books that are now being donated to the Duluth Community Schools Collaborative.

Book sellers made holiday ornaments out of old unusable books and sold them for funds toward the book donation.

The collaborative represents what it calls three of Duluth’s most diverse schools in the district.

The executive director said the books will provide students with better access to authors and characters of color.

“We tend to have a lot of white teachers in the schools, a lot of white staff and we wanted to be able to see role models that look like them, that sound like them, that have similar experiences to them — and books are a great way to do that,” said Kelsey Gantzer, executive director of the Duluth Community Schools Collaborative.

More than 130 books were donated by The Bookstore at Fitger’s for Myers-Wilkins Elementary, Lincoln Park Middle School and Denfeld High School.