My beloved church camp in the Blue Ridge mountains lost a lot of revenue this year, like so many of our beloved institutions. In addition to cancelling summer camp for the first time in 92 years, their big fall fundraiser, called Heritage Day, is cancelled, too. So, folks are getting creative in the ways we raise money. Instead of a big one day festival where good church folk sell crocheted washcloths (which my grandma did for many years) or homemade applebutter (cooked in a copper kettle over an open fire all night long) or hand-pieced quilts or preacher cookies (my sister makes the best, BTW) or hand-tatted lace or country ham biscuits or kitschy wreaths or pinto beans or potted mums or fried apple pies or hand-knit scarves or sausage gravy (good GRIEF, I love autumn in the mountains)…we’re trying out some new things.

I have never been great at handicrafts, and while I can hold my own in the kitchen, my buttermilk pie will never live up to the ones up for sale at Heritage Day. Even though I’m a bona fide lady preacher, my church lady status is…lacking. I’m not great at crafting or baking but I DO read a ton of books. And I LOVE to tell other people what they should read.

So, I’m taking a page from my favorite podcast (What Should I Read Next, hosted by Anne Bogel), and offering homemade, from scratch, personalized, artisanal book recommendations! For you! For as little as a $5 donation to Camp Bethel.

Here’s how it works:

1. Make a donation – either by sending money to me through PayPal (danacassell@gmail.com) or directly to Camp on their website. I’m planning to match the total I raise, so if you give directly, be sure to let me know how much you donated.
2. Fill out this form, telling me three books you love, one book you hate and what you’ve been reading lately, and I’ll recommend three books that seem up your alley.

If you’re curious what kind of reading I do, you can check out my Goodreads page. If you want to see how it works, you can see what I recommended to Callie. If you don’t read books or don’t really care which ones I think you’d like, you can just make a no-strings-attached, tax-exempt donation to Camp Bethel.

Questions? You can comment here or email me at danacassell at gmail.com.