World Book Night’s Top Giver Regions

With the second annual U.S. celebration of World Book Night less than a week away, the organization has released a list of the towns, cities, and regions that are home to the most volunteer givers per capita.

Separating the areas merely by individual towns and cities “didn’t capture the full picture of where the most givers are,” said WBN Executive Director Carl Lennertz. “Yes, the five big cities top the list in order of population, but then it begins to follow along the lines of both very involved bookstores and libraries, as well as places with community-minded citizens and/or a population in need.”

The top 10 WBN giver regions per capita:

• West Seattle Sound (Bainbridge Island/Kitsap/Olympic Peninsula)
• Lansing/Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, MI
• Buffalo/Rochester/Oswego/Brockport, NY
• Los Angeles beach towns
• San Joaquin Valley, especially Fresno and Bakersfield
• East Bay: Oakland, Berkeley, and all of East Bay
• Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill Triangle
• Eugene/Salem/Corvallis, OR
• Palm Beach County, FL
• Hudson Valley, NY 

The top 25 WBN giver cities and town per capita:

• St. Louis, MO
• Wichita, KS
• Louisville, KY
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Boulder, CO
• Naperville, IL
• Albuquerque, NM
• Omaha, NE
• Boston, MA
• Memphis, TN
• Athens, GA
• Tucson, AZ
• Scranton, PA
• Brooklyn, NY
• Odessa, TX
• Springfield, MO
• Des Moines, IA
• Milwaukee, WI
• Richmond, VA
• Portland, ME
• Jackson, MS 

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