Thousands of books : Bentonville schools have gone all out in a book drive for South Africa.
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
BENTONVILLE - Ninth-grader Ewald Visser said he would have been happy with 500 books as a result of his second book drive for South Africa, but when he heard the six Bentonville schools involved in the drive collected around 8, 500 books, he was left speechless.
"I thought if I could get 1, 000 books from one school last year, how much more could I get this year ? "Visser said.
After visiting family in South Africa in December 2006, Visser saw a need to fill the shelves in the public libraries and decided to act on it when he got back to the United States.
"We went to the library where my mom used to go when she was younger; you could hardly call it a library," Visser said. "We also asked around at other libraries, and some of them have no books at all. "
After the success of the 2007 book drive, Visser, now a student at Bentonville High School, contacted teachers and administration at Thomas Jefferson and Mary Mae elementary schools, Spring Hill and Ruth Hale Barker middle schools and Washington Junior High School, where he held the first book drive.
Spring Hill Student Council adviser Regena Shelby said the school's fifth- and sixth-graders alone collected around 6, 000 books during the two-week book drive that concluded Friday.
"Ewald first contacted me because I was his former teacher. Our student council spearheaded getting the drive done, and many, many students contributed," Shelby said.
She said the school tried to keep the book drive low key because the school year is winding down. No newsletters were sent out, and only the 23 home-room teachers announced the drive in their classes. Spring Hill has 635 students.
Students were asked to bring books that they had finished reading or that were sitting in their closets. Visser said he prefers elementary- through high-schoolage books, though adult-age books were certainly welcome.
In shipping the books to South Africa, Visser said that last year he got lucky.
"Word got back to South Africa that we were having a book drive. The Clover Cargo company heard about it, and they said, ' Give us the books and we'll take them over for free, '"Visser said.
While last year's shipment was about 800 pounds of books, Visser said he's waiting to pack up, size and weigh the boxes of books from this year's drive before contacting shipping companies.
The books will go to rural schools in Mpumalanga Province in northeast South Africa where Visser has some relatives, and also to a Rotary International contact who will help distribute the books.
"South Africa has been going through a lot of change lately, and a lot of the government money tends to focus on other things like housing and health care and not education," Visser said.
Visser, one of two 2008 recipients of the Arkansas Prudential Volunteer award for his book-drive work, said his parents play a big part in helping organize and encourage the book drive. Also, Visser said, the BHS Band supported the drive a lot this spring, and he has countless teachers to thank for the drive's success.
As for donating more books, Visser said this year's drive is being wrapped up, but he plans to hold another drive in 2009 at the end of the school year.
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