‘Keep The Bookloft aloft’: 50-year-old Berkshires bookstore turns to GoFundMe to stay afloat

For fifty years, The Bookloft has served the small town of Great Barrington in southern Berkshire County. But a “drastic” dip in sales has the owner of the bookstore turning to a crowdfunding campaign to help to save the bookstore.

Located at 63 State Rd., The Bookloft was founded in 1974 by Eric and Evelyn Wilska. They sold it to Pamela Pescosolido in 2016, who moved the store in 2020 to its current location in a converted doctor’s office. In late 2022, Pescosolido sold the store to employee Giovanni Boivin, who took the helm of the bookstore at the start of 2023.

The bookstore had experienced the usual post-holiday lull in January, February, and March, Boivin said. But when sales numbers didn’t pick up like they should have come April and May, the anxiety started creeping in.

“It was unusual. Unusually quiet, to the point where I was getting really worried that if we don’t see some kind of shift in revenue and foot traffic, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it through the rest of the year,” he said.

After trying alternative ways to increase revenue, such as hosting collaborative events and off-site programs, Boivin decided he needed help from the community. That’s when the idea for a GoFundMe campaign, “Help Keep The Bookloft Aloft,” was born.

“It was mostly just a way of telling the larger community, ‘Hey, we’re in trouble,’” he said.

Boivin set a goal of $100,000 for the shop, following the lead of a successful effort by The Bookstore in Lenox to raise funds to save their store. The Bookstore managed to raise $125,000 through a GoFundMe campaign during the pandemic, surpassing their initial $60,000 goal. The Bookstore’s crowdfunding campaign eventually led to the creation of an acclaimed documentary, “Hello, Bookstore” about the town’s efforts to save the bookshop.

As of Thursday, The Bookloft has received just over $9,500 in donations toward its $100,000 goal.

Boivin emphasized that donations to the GoFundMe will help the bookstore pay its bills and develop a small nest egg in the event that the shop experiences another lull in sales in the future.

“50,000 will get my bills paid, but if there’s any kind of lull in the fall or next year, I’m kind of fighting the same situation. If I do end up seeing an extended lull in sales, then I’ve got something to fall back on with that little nest egg,” he said. 

Of course, the best way to support the bookstore is through their sales, by “coming to us rather than going to Amazon,” Boivin added. Books can be ordered off the shop’s website. The store offers incentives for online purchases, such as free ground shipping on orders over $25 and priority shipping capped at only $9.

In addition to a wide selection of books across many genres and age ranges, Boivin emphasized that The Bookloft also offers an extensive selection of games and cards, including the popular Warhammer miniatures line.

Boivin said the crowdfunding campaign has been generally positively received by the Great Barrington community, and he said he’s seen a “big uptick” in foot traffic and online orders as a result. But still, the crowdfunding campaign is just shy of reaching 10% of its goal as of Thursday.

He emphasized that supporting local, independent bookstores is incredibly important, not only to instill a lifelong love of reading, but also to support a local business and community.

“We’re neighbors, we’re family members, we’re part of the community. The store’s tax dollars go back into the local community, into the local economy,” Boivin said.