65 fun facts from 65 years of Children’s Hospital Book Market

1. Children’s Hospital Book Market is the longest-running fundraiser in support of Manitoba’s only children’s hospital.  

2. Children’s Hospital Book Market’s first event was held in April of 1961.

3. The first sale was held at Polo Park Shopping Centre, which was brand new. The mall didn’t even have a roof at the time!

4. The first sale in April 1961 raised $1,500. (That’s the equivalent of $16,000 today!)

5. Since 1961, totals raised at each sale have grown exponentially and now the event brings in around $500,000 each year.

6. Children’s Hospital Book Market has raised more than $10 million since it began.

7. The idea for Book Market came from Margaret Van Vliet, Chair of the Board for Children’s Hospital at the time, after she heard about a similar event at a conference in Minneapolis.

8. The Children’s Hospital Book Market in Manitoba was the first event of its kind in Canada.

9. This event was the first major cooperative initiative between the six Children’s Hospital Guilds (McKinnon, Annie A. Bond, Chown, St. Agnes, St. John’s and Lt. Melville Wood) and the Nurses Alumnae of the Children’s Hospital. 

10. The responsibilities for leading the Book Market used to rotate between the Guilds, with each group taking on a two-year term.

11. The Guilds have amalgamated into one Children’s Hospital Guild of Manitoba and many members still volunteer at Book Market.

12. The Winnipeg Tribune published an article on April 10, 1961 about the first Book Market sale titled “Unusual Book Market is Launched by Guilds.”

13. Sales are possible thanks to the generosity and support of the public continuing to donate gently used books.

14. Book Market has always offered titles at deeply discounted prices. At the first sale novels started at $0.25, $0.10 for paperbacks and $0.15 for kids’ books.

15. Children’s Hospital Book Market relies on volunteers to run the event and always has.

16. Friends of the Book Market, a group of volunteers invited by Guild members, became critical to running the events.

17. Volunteers work year-round collecting, sorting and pricing books for the sales. On event days volunteers manage the many genre tables, help buyers find their perfect read and ring through purchases.   

18. When Book Market began, volunteers sorted and priced books in the basement of an old three-story house called the Annex, which was originally a nurses residence known to flood.

19. After The Annex, storage and sorting space for books was relocated to a room affectionately known as “the hole” in the basement of a building on the Health Sciences Centre campus.

20. “The hole” had a chute for depositing books but occasionally other items made their way down including a bag of groceries, homemade preserves and some small animals.

21. At times volunteers had to ride down the chute to unlock the space from the inside when the key to the storage room went missing.

22. Book Market has grown so much that its headquarters is now in a larger space off the hospital campus, where it moved in 2001.

23. Book Market developed a system to categorize books thanks to Marjory Preston, a long-time employee in the Eaton’s book department. A version of this system is still used today.

24. Book Market sales now have stock from over 80 categories including fiction, children’s books, mystery, recent releases, sports, cookbooks, travel, poetry, reference, languages and more.

25. In 1971 the Book Market got a special visit from Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Winnipeg’s Lloyd Axworthy.

26. In 1980, Winnipeg Mayor Bill Norrie signed a City Proclamation designating April 28 – May 10 as Children’s Hospital Book Market Days.

27. In 1982, the Children’s Hospital Book Market made more than $100,000 during one sale for the first time.

28. Book Market has supported a wide variety of initiatives over its 65-year history including pediatric health research, leading-edge equipment and innovative programming to provide comfort for families in hospital.

29.Today Book Market supports Child Life programming like music therapy, the library program, CHTV (the hospital’s closed-circuit television station with content just for kids) and a playroom with toys, games, crafts and a mini hospital where kids can play out their experiences with treatments and procedures.

30. Thanks to Book Market funding, the Book Corner Library that opened in 1988 provides patients with books, magazines and more. Access to these materials often lower the stress of being in hospital.

31. Book Market also supports the Family Information Library at HSC Children’s Hospital, which opened in 1993 to provide resources to families to help them better understand kids’ health conditions.

32. Volunteers have always made sure leftover books find meaningful homes following sales, including donating books to HSC Volunteer Services, nursing homes, penitentiaries, schools and more. 

33. In 2004 Book Market Coordinator, Carol Irving, was hired to lead the sales.  

34. When Carol, Book Market Coordinator, was a child she volunteered alongside her aunt and other family members. She later became a pricer then a shop manager in the children’s book section. She also acted as chair of the Board until she took on her current role as the event’s coordinator in 2004.

35. Many generations of families have made volunteering for Book Market part of their family traditions. There are at least three Book Market families who have volunteered for three generations.

36. The Doer family – including former Premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer, have a special connection to the sale. Gary Doer’s mom, Gwen, was a founding member and one of the original Book Marketeers. She spent hundreds of hours collecting and sorting books and enlisted the help of her sons, Gary, David and James. Gwen Doer was also one of Book Market’s many dedicated chairs.

Gary Doer’s support of the Book Market continued into adulthood, including his tenure (1999 to 2009) as Premier – buying books and thanking the many volunteers that make the yearly sales a success. In 2023 Gary Doer’s daughter, Kate, did a student work placement at Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba, which included lending her talents and knowledge at the 2023 spring Book Market.

37. Book Market’s size grew exponentially when the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service and Firefighters’ Burn Fund became involved. In addition to providing support for Book Market, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service Stations became book donation drop-off locations in 2000 which made donating books convenient and accessible for all of Winnipeg.

38. Book Market volunteers form lifelong friendships and bonds and have even been known to pull pranks on one another. One prank included making a volunteer believe she was under arrest at a sale. She was relieved to find out the person flashing the badge was a policewoman from another city who had been asked to help with the joke.

39. Longtime Book Market volunteer and Chair from 1983 – 84 Barb Whitla wrote many poems about the Book Market including the one below:

Weary – At last we sit for a breather
We smile at each other – we are real achievers!
Twelve months of pickups, sorting and pricing
We store’em, board’em, and smile to ourselves –
We know in the spring, they’ll be on our shelves.
Time for our market – the public takes part
Are we dealing with books or gifts from the heart?
Not just research is high on our list
But showing the public loves’ labour exists
So breathe a deep sigh and stand proud and tall
We did it for the children in the Polo Park Mall!

40. Book Market and the volunteers who run it have received many awards over the years including the 1985 Mayor’s Volunteer Award in the Health category.

41. Three Book Market volunteers have received Teddy Awards for their service.

42. In 1986 Book Market moved from CF Polo Park to St. Vital Centre, where it still runs today.

43.Book Market is so large that it now takes four semi-trailers to move pallets of books to St. Vital Centre for the sales.

44. There are many, many dedicated volunteers who have served decades with Children’s Hospital Book Market as chairs of the Book Market Board and as Guild members including Colleen Horbay who was a Children’s Hospital nurse, lifelong volunteer and leader in our community.   

45. As of 2025, Sheila Hirt has been Chair of the Book Market Board for 21 years.

46. Joan Macdonald is the only living original Book Marketeer.

47. Elma Neufeld has volunteered for 51 years.

48. Book Market started in 1961 with 10 tables of books and the Fall 2024 sale had 413 tables.  

49. The first sales were cash only, and now the sales need 26 debit machines to run the sale.

50. When the event started accepting electronic payment in 2005 there was just one debit machine.

51. Book Market volunteers used to do all book donation collection with their own personal vehicles.

52. The event started pickups for donated books using a truck in 1997.

53. Book pickups used to be done once a month and are now needed on average once a week.

54. Rural book collection began in 1968.

55. One year the rural chairperson heard from 47 towns, had six long distance calls and wrote 931 letters for book collections.

56. The first wooden bookshelves for the sale were built in 1962.

57. Books were displayed on tables starting in 2006. 

58. Children’s Hospital Book Market incorporated in 2001.

59. Book Market’s first warehouse manager was Harold Komar.

60. Volunteers have always been creative and innovative in finding solutions to make tasks more efficient like installing a conveyor belt to move books, certifying volunteers as forklift operators to transfer pallets of books onto trucks, organizing assembly lines to pack up and so much more.

61. A poignant quote overheard about volunteers at the mall’s security desk, ”They are here in the morning, in the afternoon,  in the evening, and on the weekend – don’t they ever go home?”

62. Dufresne Furniture & Appliances became a title sponsor in 2004.

63. Book Market is possible thanks to community supporters including City Press, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, the Firefighters’ Burn Fund, Toromont, WestRock, RS Express, Waste Connections of Canada and many more over the years.

64. Volunteers all have a special connection to the event. As Carol Irving says, “Every single volunteer has a reason for being part of Book Market and a connection to the cause of helping Children’s Hospital. These are smart, capable and talented folks using their skills to make each event as impactful as possible.”

65. The Book Market is a cornerstone community event and plays a critical role in the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba’s mission to support families who need Manitoba’s only children’s hospital.