GGB StL’s Blind Date with a Book Swap and Do Better Event

BLIND DATE WITH A BOOK & GEEK GIRL BRUNCH DO BETTER EVENT

            The great George R. R. Martin once said, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.”  If that’s the case, GGB StL brunchette’s must live millions of lives with our unending love for books!  19 amazing book nerds showed up bringing their very own favorite book wrapped up and smothered in clues for our blind book swap.  This was also our first  GGB Do Better event of the year, and man did our ladies show up and outdo any expectations!

GGB Do Better

For our GGB Do Better event, we collected items to donate to Carita’s Solutions and St. John Bosco’s Children.  Caritas is a local organization that services over 1,100 foster children.  They house many children within their organization that have suffered trauma at the hands of those that are supposed to love and protect them, leaving them in need of extensive care and therapy.  This organization provides that care but does so with very little funding. We were able to speak with one of the workers learning that within the last 3 weeks, over 75 children had been turned over to their organization by the local police department that ranged in age from 3-months to 17years old.  These children live within the center 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to be able to receive the care that they need, and often times adoption is not possible for them due to they’ve experienced.  We learned that our donations would help care for these children. Our geeky little chapter was able to supply the center with over 200 items ranging in feminine products, hygiene products, books, journals, movies, headphones, night lights, school supplies, tote bags, laundry baskets, socks, underwear, and so much more that they were in desperate need of.  Each lady bringing in items was entered into a raffle for 3 amazing swag baskets filled to the brim with nerdy items, and our winners were elated!

Morgan Street Brewery

Brunch was held at the amazing Morgan Street Brewery in St. Louis, and to say we had a good time is an understatement.  Morgan Street Brewery is housed in one of the oldest buildings in the historic Laclede’s Landing near the St. Louis Arch.  Their beer is made on site, as they are a micro-brewery, and it is fantastic.  They offered beer flights, allowing us to taste up to 6 of their beers and even had a coffee and espresso menu for those geeky ladies not partaking in “adult beverages.”  Their food menu offered a wide variety that included hot baked beer pretzels served with a house made steam lager mustard (this was a table favorite), a BBQ chicken pizza, burgers, sandwiches, and FRIED MASHED POTATOES (the real MVP). You can never go wrong when you have good food to pair with good beer and great company!

Our book swap went down without a hitch.  Everyone was super excited to choose their books, carefully reading all the clues and narrowing down their choices to the one to rule them all… (sorry, not sorry).  Goodreads accounts were kept open on everyone’s phones while the unwrapping and reveals took place, and everyone’s TBR list grew larger with each reveal!  One of our amazing members started a Pop-Up Library for our chapter and it started with a bang!  Each brunch she will bring in our little book collection, and the premise is that each brunchette returns a book to take a book.  Several of our members offered to go through their own books to donate to the collection and everyone seemed excited to have something easily accessible with a month’s time in between their next book.  April’s brunch was definitely one for the books, pun intended!