Fundraiser benefits struggling bookstore

After almost 13 years in business, one volunteer-run Bloomington bookstore is struggling financially.

Boxcar Books and Community Center organized a benefit show to raise money for the store Tuesday night at the Back Door. It included performances by High Dive, Mike Adams at His Honest Weight and DJ Kitteh.

The performances began at 10 p.m. with a recommended $5 to $10 donation.

Ali Loris, a worker at Boxcar, said Boxcar has been having monetary issues for a while due to the recent surge in online book sales during the past few years.

Loris said Boxcar hopes to have more regular benefit shows, not just for the profit, but also as a way to become a greater presence in Bloomington and bring the community together.

Boxcar will look to connect with other like-minded groups and people to team up on future events, she said.

“I think that we’re constantly excited about Boxcar kind of as a social space and a place where people can get together and work on projects together, so I guess we’re always looking for people who want to collaborate with us,” Loris said.

Boxcar recently stopped selling textbooks, which has contributed to the store’s financial difficulties, she said.

“More recently, we’ve been reassessing the ways we’ve been running and if it’s in line with our mission and vision,” Loris said. “We decided through that to stop selling textbooks.”

Textbooks were not as profitable for Boxcar because of competition with T.I.S. College Bookstore and Barnes & Noble. The sales process was not enjoyable enough for workers to continue putting forth the time and effort to sell textbooks, Loris said.

The bookstore is trying to find other ways to raise money and keep the local store afloat, like the current “in the red” sale.

Any book with a red 25 percent off sticker is marked down to 50 percent off until the end of February, Boxcar worker Taylor Dean said.

Stone Irr, a junior at IU, said he is a patron of Boxcar and enjoys reading for pleasure.
“It’s not just a bookstore,” Irr said. “It’s definitely a meeting place for the community. It’s an equitable place as well, for students and professors, whoever.”

Irr mentioned Boxcar’s work with the Midwest Pages for Prisoners Project, which provides free reading to prisoners in an effort to promote critical thinking in prison.

“It’s definitely a space for focusing on social justice issues that definitely need to be discussed more thoroughly outside of a classroom setting,” Irr said. “But it’s open for anybody to join regardless of whether you’re a student or professor. They do a good job of creating a good, equal sort of space for those who are wanting to learn.”