Thunder Bay Rotary Club Ships Books to Haiti and Jamaica
The past week was a busy one for the City of Thunder Bay’s Rotary Clubs, who spent hours packing boxes with books on Wednesday. The books will be sent to the Caribbean nations of Haiti and Jamaica in an effort to boost literacy in the two countries.
The Rotary Race to Literacy Book Drive Project is both a national and global campaign created to help promote literacy by collecting pre-used books and donating them to countries in need. The project is well on its way to breaking the existing world record for the most books donated to charity in 1 week.
The current record was established in California 2 years ago, with organizers donating a whopping total of 243,000 books collected in just 7 days. But according to Maria Hudolin, former Port Arthur Rotary president, breaking the current Guinness record is just an extra-goal. Helping those in Haiti and Jamaica learn to read is the focus of the project, she said.
In both countries, the lack of books and other reading materials for early education is a problem that’s often overlooked. The only way kids in these countries can learn how to read is if they receive help from the outside. This is especially a problem for Haiti, whose citizens are still trying to get back on their feet after a destructive earthquake devastated the country’s capital city of Port Au Prince in January.
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