For the past year, Ginger Young has seen a river of books flow in and out of her garage.

Young has housed Chapel Hill-based nonprofit Book Harvest’s collection of donated books, which swelled by 10,000 volumes Monday during the group’s first community-wide book drive.

The drive was held at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the books will be distributed by Book Harvest to 20 schools, social service agencies, health clinics and other locations in the Triangle.

Young, the founder and president of the one-year-old nonprofit, said it distributed about 35,000 books in 2011 through smaller drives.

“When we started this we didn’t know what to expect, but the books just flew off the shelves in the beginning, and they’re still flying off the shelves now,” Young said.

Rev. Robert Campbell, who spoke at the drive Monday at Flyleaf, said he thinks books are important to provide to children because they encourage them to think for themselves.

“I see bags of books going in, bags of books going out,” he said. “It’s a revolving door that opens up a lot of opportunities.”

Young said more than 300 people attended the event, including more than 30 volunteers from AmeriCorps, a program that allows adults to serve both local and national nonprofit groups.

Lynne Walter, program director for the N.C. LiteracyCorps and a volunteer at the event, said she thinks volunteering on Martin Luther King Jr. Day is especially important to remember his legacy.

“On this particular day it’s important because Dr. King was about service, so it’s important for people to remember that and actually do some sort of action around service,” she said.

Young said she was blown away by the volunteer response and the number of books collected.

“This is a day people can all be off, at the movies, sleeping late, having fun and they’ve all come out to do this,” Young said. “It’s such an inspiration to me.”

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