Books, Books, and More Books

Throughout the semester we have been collecting children’s books to take with us to Ghana. The books are going to go to a new community library that has been built. It quickly became clear that we were going to have to have the books mailed. There were simply far too many to take with us. Students and faculty from VCU donated books, local churches donated books, a local salon collected books, my mother-in-law and a children’s book distributer in Wisconsin sent us boxes of books… the community of Richmond, our friends and family all did an amazing job collecting and donating books for our cause. I had no doubt we would get plenty of books, the volume however was even more than I expected. The problem with having that many books is how to get them to Ghana. After some research Stacey found the best way would be to send them by ship to Ghana. We spent an evening sorting the books by books for older children, books for younger children, and an “other” pile (books that may be culturally inappropriate or not for children to be donated locally, and books that were too worn, ripped or written in to be sent). Though there were a few books that needed to be taken out overall the quality and variety of the books was great, I was very impressed. Sorting the books brought back a lot of childhood memories as I saw books that had been my favorites. In the end we had more than 25 packaged boxes to ship. Anyone reading this that gave a book, thank you! I am sure all of these books will be greatly appreciated by the children in Ghana.