Budding Libraries (Part 2): Book Donation Update

Several months ago, we shared with you that we are both working on creating libraries at our respective schools. We have made significant progress since that post and we wanted to take a moment to update you on this process and express our IMMENSE gratitude to those who made this possible.

Library Makeover: Before

Library Makeover: In Progress

Book Donations

Our schools both have between 350-400 learners. According to the Department of Basic Education in South Africa, each school of this size should have a library containing a minimum of 2,250 books in order to be considered effective. When we started at our schools last September, we had less than 100 books at each of our schools. So, acquiring books was a very good place to start!!

We both completed and were approved to receive two separate book grants for our schools:

• One grant with Books for Africa & Breadline Africa for 1,250 books.
• One grant with the African Library Project for 1,000 books.

With both Books for Africa and the African Library Project, the books are shipped from the United States to South Africa on cargo ships. It is ideal for the organisation to send shipments of books in bulk, filling one entire shipping container. The organisation, then, encourages Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) to collaborate in groups of 10-15 on their grants. Therefore, for both of these grants, we will talk about a “Project Lead” who is responsible for liaising with the granting organization and ensuring that us PCVs have our ducks in a row. Without these Project Leads, these grants would never have happened.

African Library Project (Grant Completed: November 2014; Books Received: October 2015)

The African Library Project (ALP) grant application is a phenomenally thorough document. It requires schools to provide everything from their library rules and consequences to policies for the use and maintenance of the books. In short, this organisation makes a concerted effort to ensure that the books donated through ALP are given to schools that have the infrastructure and sustainability to support the effective use and maintenance of the books.

With ALP, a PCV must find US counterparts who will take responsibility for hosting book and donation drives to collect the 1,000 books and $500 needed to ship and deliver the books to the school. We wanted to take a moment to honour and explain the work invested by these counterparts to make this donation possible.

For Michelle’s school, the US counterparts were a good friend, Joan, from her former church in Tacoma and her former colleague, Paul, at the University of Washington Tacoma. Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation hosted a fun, family-friendly awareness event and collected donations of books or money for over a month to benefit this grant. The UWT Center for Service & Leadership hosted a month-long book donation drive and the book-packaging event, which prepared the books for shipment.

Michelle's Principal is so grateful to our African Library Project Donors!!!

For Joe’s school, the US counterparts were our dear friends, Michael and Emily, and his former colleague at Pacific Lutheran University, Tiffany.  Michael and Emily solicited friends and family for donations locally in Washington and afar in California.  At PLU, Tiffany commissioned the help of some of her student leaders in the Center for Community Engagement & Service to spread the word around the campus about the book drive as well as to set up a collection.  Once the books were collected, Michael and Emily packed them into boxes and sent them off to staging in New Orleans in order to board a ship bound for South Africa.

Joe's Shipment From African Library Project

Books for Africa & Breadline Africa (Grant Completed: October 2014; Books Received: July 2015)

When we applied for the book donation from Books for Africa (BFA), the Project Leads were two PCVs in the province of Limpopo, Pasha and Tori. Books donated through BFA are primarily books discarded by other libraries or schools. Once we were accepted, the collective group raised enough money to ship the books from the U.S. to Durban and provide overland travel to get the books from Durban to Limpopo. Once in Limpopo, a group of volunteers worked together to sort the boxes of books into piles to ensure that each school or organisation received the appropriate number of books. (These folks did a LOT of heavy lifting!)

On our side, our schools, along with two other PCVs’ schools in our shopping town, had to develop a plan to go to Limpopo, collect the books, and bring them nearly 500 miles (804.7 km) back to our villages. The PCVs and principals began this conversation in April and did a significant amount of legwork to make it possible, including: communicating with multiple district offices, calling at least a dozen moving companies, national chain grocery stores, and personal contacts. Despite our best planning and trust, the plan was not finalized until less than 48 hours before the books were supposed to be collected. As you can imagine, this caused a great deal of stress and anxiety for all of us… Let’s just say that although the “blood and sweat” part of the book delivery process was largely handled by PCVs in Limpopo, the “tears” part of the process was sufficiently met by us PCVs in KwaZulu-Natal.

Laura, on top of piles and piles of books!

On Sunday, June 7, Michelle and another volunteer from our area, Laura, got into a public taxi to start the trek to Limpopo. Thirty hours later, they met the truck driver (an employee of a friend of Laura’s principal, and our saving grace for this book collection debacle) in Polokwane and drove to collect 175 boxes, containing a total of about 7,000 books for our 4 schools. 3 days later, the truck arrived in our village and delivered the books to our schools. ((WHEW!))

Shipment from Limpopo

Donation Credits!

Our gratitude in this donation process goes first to Tori, Pasha & Caroline who coordinated the grant processes and various logistics. This would never have been possible without the donated time, energy, and finances of our two partners-in-crime, Maureen & Laura. We made it happen!! Thank you again to Michael, Emily, Joan, and Paul. You are TOTAL rock stars! Also thank you to the dozens of friends and family members who donated books and money to this cause. It has been lovely to see bits and pieces of you (children’s names in old books, labels from your local libraries, etc) from afar.

Finally, we would be remiss to overlook the dedication of our principals and library committees for their support throughout this entire process. They are the foundation for our programs and the rock upon which we stand.

Joe's learners are SO STOKED!

What’s Next:

Now, we are facing the hurdles of:

• Sorting and labeling the books…
• Increasing the physical space allocated to the library and, last but not least,…
• Training learners and teachers how to use the books.