A Tragic Update to The Sketchbook Project Community

"With over 60,000 sketchbooks from 30,000 different global creative people, we have grown over the past 15 years to be the largest collection of sketchbooks in the world. We have reignited art careers, inspired first time creatives and even helped a few marriage proposals. We have connected long lost friends, sparked creativity in young minds and created a space for art to live on, indefinitely."

On Monday, February 28th, the moving trailer that was transporting the entire Sketchbook Project collection from Brooklyn to St. Pete was in a devastating accident and caught fire while driving through Baltimore. We are incredibly thankful that everyone involved in the accident is safe and not hurt.
We are lucky to report that around 70% of the The Sketchbook Project collection was saved through the heroic efforts of local volunteers, firefighters, and community members from a nearby church who so kindly moved each box of books one by one into their parking lot. We are beginning to assess the damage, but we estimate we lost around 7,000 books of the collection and most of our supplies that helped us operate as an organization.

You can help us rebuild by donating to our Fire Relief GoFundMe https://gofund.me/dae6a0de.
At this moment, we are asking our community to please consider donating to help us rebuild our platform. The loss of each sketchbook is unimaginable, but to lose the spirit of the collection and the mission of the project’s creative community we have spent years cultivating would be even worse.

 
For next steps, we are in the process of developing a dashboard that will soon allow artists in the collection to check the status of their book. Additionally, our team plans to pause from everyday operations to shift gears into assessing the damage of each sketchbook and how we will move forward with salvaging the collection.
This community means so much to us and we are incredibly grateful for your support.

All text from The Skectchbook Project Page.