.
What Happened to the Donated Books?
We began Literacy Promotion Book Donation Project at our November
Chapter meeting. Members were asked to
donate children’s and adult’s new or gently used books. Members responded
generously and a total of 240 books and 125 magazines were collected.
Donations made were in response to a need explained to us by Dorothy Hoerr, Executive Director of Brunswick County Literacy Council. Each year, the Literacy Council contributes books to be included as Christmas or holiday gifts to needy children and adults who are registered with the Brunswick County Family Assistance Program, to an elementary school, and to residents at Hope Harbor where there may be both children and mothers.
On December 5th, I met with other volunteers to load our cars to take the books to a warehouse attached to the old Brunswick Beacon building on Smith Ave. in Shallotte. That was the “staging Place” for the gift presentations to the families. Six hundred families in need are served through the Brunswick Family Assistance. You can imagine that the gift-giving could be a logistical nightmare, if it were not well organized. To do this, the boxes of books are labeled with numbers and letters. The numbers represent the family and the letters represent the children in a family. When the family comes to collect their gifts, they register and sign, then a volunteer goes to the box with the number corresponding to the family. The books and gifts have already been sorted to appropriate age and interest level. As volunteers, our job was to place the sorted bags of books in the correct families’ boxes. In the boxes, you see everything from fishing rods to games, plus the books.
Donations made were in response to a need explained to us by Dorothy Hoerr, Executive Director of Brunswick County Literacy Council. Each year, the Literacy Council contributes books to be included as Christmas or holiday gifts to needy children and adults who are registered with the Brunswick County Family Assistance Program, to an elementary school, and to residents at Hope Harbor where there may be both children and mothers.
After collecting the books, a sticky label was attached inside denoting the book was donated by the Brunswick Town Chapter of Daughters of
the American Revolution. We collected so many books that it was necessary to make two deliveries to
the Literacy Council headquarters on Route 17 in Supply.
On December 5th, I met with other volunteers to load our cars to take the books to a warehouse attached to the old Brunswick Beacon building on Smith Ave. in Shallotte. That was the “staging Place” for the gift presentations to the families. Six hundred families in need are served through the Brunswick Family Assistance. You can imagine that the gift-giving could be a logistical nightmare, if it were not well organized. To do this, the boxes of books are labeled with numbers and letters. The numbers represent the family and the letters represent the children in a family. When the family comes to collect their gifts, they register and sign, then a volunteer goes to the box with the number corresponding to the family. The books and gifts have already been sorted to appropriate age and interest level. As volunteers, our job was to place the sorted bags of books in the correct families’ boxes. In the boxes, you see everything from fishing rods to games, plus the books.
Boxes in the warehouse were sorted and placed in order to facilitate delivery.
Volunteers from the Brunswick Literacy Council on December 5, 2017 took a break from organizing the gifts of books.
Information provided by Carol Hart, Literacy Promotion Chair
