Does Give My Books Network Take Board Games and Puzzles in Tampa?

Yes, and they go out in the same collection as books. Give My Books Network accepts board games, jigsaw puzzles, card games, and video games from any Tampa address a Local Pick-Up Partner serves.

They come from the top shelf of the hall closet, most of them, behind the beach towels. Half a family's history in cardboard boxes with soft corners.

What If a Piece Is Missing?

Say so on the lid and send it anyway. A game short one pawn is still playable by somebody with a button and an imagination, and a Local Pick-Up Partner would rather sort a maybe than watch it sit in a closet for another decade.

The honest line falls elsewhere. A jigsaw missing forty pieces has no second life waiting for it, and a board gone furry with mildew after a wet season in a New Tampa garage is finished. Write the count on the box if you happen to know it. Nobody expects you to sit down and check.

Why Games Matter on a Rained-Out August Afternoon

An August storm in Tampa can put four kids indoors by two o'clock with nothing to do, and a hurricane day can put them there for two days with no power at all. A board game does not need a charger.

That is not a marketing line, it is just how summer works here. After-school programs, senior centers, shelters, and family resource rooms ask for games constantly through the Give ME Books program, and they ask hardest in exactly the months when the sky opens every afternoon.

How Do I Pack Games and Puzzles?

Tape each game box shut before it goes into the carton, because a lid that pops in transit turns one game into a hundred loose pieces. The donor packs, and a Local Pick-Up Partner does not bring boxes.

• A wrap of tape or a rubber band around each game box, straight across the lid.
• Bag any loose pieces and tape the bag to the inside of the lid.
• Flat games at the bottom of the carton, odd-shaped ones on top.
• Keep the carton light enough to lift alone. Games are bulkier than they are heavy, so a big carton fills before it strains.
• Out on the morning of your service day, under a roof: the carport, the lanai, a deep porch overhang.

What Comes, and What Stays Behind

Nearly everything from that closet is welcome, in the same carton as your books. Ordinary wear on a box is expected after a few Carrollwood Christmases and it disqualifies nothing at all.

• Board games, family games, strategy games, kids' games
• Jigsaw puzzles, complete or near enough to it
• Card games, playing cards, trivia decks
• Chess, checkers, backgammon, dominoes
• Video games and the cartridges and discs behind them
• Puzzle books and activity books with pages left in them

Hold back anything mildewed, water-swollen, or missing so much of itself that it cannot be played. In Tampa that is usually the carton that spent a summer flat on a garage floor.

Where Tampa Games and Puzzles Go

Local Pick-Up Partners sort everything offsite after collection, then redistribute many items to readers, schools, libraries, nonprofits, and organizations that request them through the Give ME Books program. Games are among the steadiest requests those programs make.

Some are resold by the partner, and that resale is what keeps the collection free for the household. Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. For a broader sense of how donation programs handle materials that are not books, the American Library Association's book donation programs guide is a reasonable starting point.

How Do I Schedule the Pickup?

Enter your ZIP code on the Give My Books Network site and choose a service day. If a Local Pick-Up Partner already serves your street, you can book immediately; if not, the request enters the out-of-area pickup system, where a nearby partner may claim it.

Collections run 8 AM to 8 PM and nobody has to be home. There is no cost and no minimum, so one puzzle counts. Leave the carton under the carport in the morning and let some other family lose the same pawn.