Twenty-three Central Iowa organizations donated more than 40,000 books to United Way’s Stuff the Bus book drive, an increase of 10,000 books from last year’s event. The results were announced at a book drop-off event at Athene USA in West Des Moines on Monday. Employees of Athene, the event’s sponsor, contributed nearly 18,500 of those books this year, more than double last year’s number. The books will be distributed to child-serving programs, child care centers and in-home child care providers in Dallas, Polk and Warren Counties. “The thousands of books we collected this week are critical to helping children in Central Iowa succeed,” said Elisabeth Buck, president of United Way of Central Iowa. “Nearly two-thirds of kids in low-income homes do not have children’s books.”