Bidding Starts Sunday for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation’s Piggy Bank Auction

The Book Industry Charitable (Binc) Foundation’s third Bank on Booksellers online auction starts Sunday, September 9, to help raise money for the charitable foundation that assists booksellers experiencing financial hardships, including homelessness, domestic violence, and natural disasters. 

The online event, which originated in 2016 as a fundraiser for an employee at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, features a wide array of hand-decorated piggy banks submitted by nearly 100 authors, illustrators, and celebrities, including Katherine Applegate, Judy Blume, Chelsea Clinton, John Grisham, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Jeff Kinney, James Patterson, Al Roker, Jon Scieszka, Cheryl Strayed, and Angie Thomas. The bidding period will kick off at 12:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday and continue through 12:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, September 15.

Piggy bank designed by children's writer and illustrator Judy Schachner, creator of the Skippyjon Jones series

The current collection of piggy banks can be seen here; booksellers can also follow Binc’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages to see new piggy banks as they are posted. The banks will also be on display on September 9 during a launch party at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including a piggy decorated by one of Literati’s owners, Mike Gustafson.

To promote this year’s auction, Binc is asking booksellers to share the Bank on Booksellers link on their social media pages and to go to Binc’s website to download marketing materials, including flyers, postcards, and a press release.