207 boxes of books donated by generous libraries throughout New Zealand have arrived in Samoa and are now sitting on our verrandah waiting to be sorted! Yes what a big job. What's more I had only several hours notice to get a truck big enough to carry over 200 boxes and some boys lined up to help load them on and off the truck. Luckily for me I work at USP and have a very understanding Campus Director who answered my plea for help.
It took us 2 hours in the blazing sun ... actually I stand corrected, I was in the shade while the boys worked in the blazing sun ... to load the boxes onto the truck and off load them onto our verrandah. It took 1 1/2 loads to get them all. My job was to lift the smaller boxes and supply cool drinks and lunch afterwards!
We are now sorting through. Have separated those donated by LIANZA and Auckland University that are to go to a school affected by the tsunami and have pulled out those addressed to Samusu Primary School. There are a huge numer of boxes that have come via Hedley and Beca Group. They are all now getting sorted into children's fiction and non-fiction, young adult novels, reference, adult fiction and non-fiction and journals/magazines. As there are so many this year (compared to last year when there were only 40ish boxes) there is not much room to move and sorting has to be a bit quicker. It is very hard not to get side tracked looking at every book you take out or marvel at the titles you recognise from when you were a child!
After sorting the next job will be to identify worthy schools and organise how to deliver them.
Thank you everyone in NZ who contributed, Judy who collected the books, Mainfreight for getting them to Auckland and Jenners for the shipping to Samoa. This is the second time we have done this and it is proving to be very valuable. I have even been contacted by someone in the USA today who would like to work with me to send books from there. The wonders of the internet and online newspaper articles!
It took us 2 hours in the blazing sun ... actually I stand corrected, I was in the shade while the boys worked in the blazing sun ... to load the boxes onto the truck and off load them onto our verrandah. It took 1 1/2 loads to get them all. My job was to lift the smaller boxes and supply cool drinks and lunch afterwards!
We are now sorting through. Have separated those donated by LIANZA and Auckland University that are to go to a school affected by the tsunami and have pulled out those addressed to Samusu Primary School. There are a huge numer of boxes that have come via Hedley and Beca Group. They are all now getting sorted into children's fiction and non-fiction, young adult novels, reference, adult fiction and non-fiction and journals/magazines. As there are so many this year (compared to last year when there were only 40ish boxes) there is not much room to move and sorting has to be a bit quicker. It is very hard not to get side tracked looking at every book you take out or marvel at the titles you recognise from when you were a child!
After sorting the next job will be to identify worthy schools and organise how to deliver them.
Thank you everyone in NZ who contributed, Judy who collected the books, Mainfreight for getting them to Auckland and Jenners for the shipping to Samoa. This is the second time we have done this and it is proving to be very valuable. I have even been contacted by someone in the USA today who would like to work with me to send books from there. The wonders of the internet and online newspaper articles!
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