Kim Raymoure March 1977 - December 2o25

Kim began volunteering with us in 2019, following our successful campaign to overturn the Washington State Department of Corrections' decision that April to ban donated books. She came in regularly during the first eight months of COVID to get what requests we were able to fulfill during that lean time ready for mailing. She was on our board for less than two years, but her influence on BtP continues to this day. She showed us that bookstore customers would buy and donate new books for people in prison, if we asked them.

Kim worked at the Queen Anne Book Company (QABC) during this time. She began bringing in advance review copies publishers sent to the store. We finally had something to send to people in prisons that imposed the then-rare restriction of "new books only," besides a card telling them that we only had used books.

QABC already had a few wish lists for book clubs and schools, to get specific titles for their members or students. Kim suggested that we create a wish list of titles representing oft-requested genres that were rarely donated. We were surprised when we asked, for example, for study guides for the commercial driver's license test, and people actually bought them for us. It seems obvious now, but it was our first wish list.

It wasn't exactly a free book tree you could just shake, but it prepared us for the new book matching drives for Independent Bookstore Days and Banned Books Week, which began in 2021. The relationship she built between us and QABC became the model for how we work with our now six other store partners.

Kim approached everything she did with intensity and conviction. She was Volunteer of the Month for December 2019. Her enthusiasm comes across so clearly in her Q&A.

She continued to live a rich, full life after she left BtP. Reading her obituary gives you an idea of the impression she made on everyone who knew her.