One of the projects that the MHS Book Club has taken on is their book fundraising project where they will raise $500 to send approximately 1000 books to St. Andy’s Preparatory School in Ghana, according to Book Club Secretary Isabel Li. The project, aptly titled “Book Drive,” will run for 3 months from February to April, Li said.
The main reason as to why the book drive is not focused on donating to a local school or community is because the club felt that it was best to help out a community that was in another country, Li stated. As a result, the club decided to pair with the non profit organization African Library Project, which connected them with St. Andy’s Preparatory School, Li said.
“We contacted the nonprofit because we wanted to work with an international organization and we really liked their work,’ Li said. “We are sending books to the St. Andy’s Preparatory School in Ghana because they currently have a library that has no books so that they can have books in their library,” Li said.
According to Book Club President Melody Tran, the easier part has been fundraising the 1000 books rather than the $500. To be able to reach the goal of $500, Book Club has gotten creative with their fundraising ideas that include setting up donation jars at local businesses like Quicklys, Sno Crave, and Joycups, selling Fried Bananas at CLOG food sales, and setting up movie nights with movies based on the current book the club is reading, Tran said.
“No one really takes the initiative to donate money,” Tran said. “Honestly, there’s around 3,000 students in this school and if everyone donated just one quarter we would have like $750.”
The club has to fundraise at least $500 because that is the standard shipping fee but that does not take into account the weight of the books which is another concerning factor, Tran stated. The Book Club has looked into other forms of receiving money such as applying for a grant or having a company like Amazon help them but those are not realistic options, Tran said.
“We probably have already raised up to 1000 books and the book drive is still going on for a couple more weeks,” Li said. “So we were thinking that the books we can’t send, we would go find another organization nearby where we probably wouldn’t have to pay shipping fees and then donate to them.”