It is the love of reading that brings together the members of the book club at the West Vancouver Secondary School. They meet once a week, pick books to read (they have just finished The Help and will move on to Eat Pray Love and Jane Eyre), discuss what they've read and usually share some treats. But this Christmas season, the high school students wanted to do more. They have organized a book drive and invite Bowen Island residents to participate. A box for gently used children's and young adult books will be available at the Bowen Island Community School's Christmas craft fair and the students will make sure that the books go where they are needed.
Kiera Schuller lives on Bowen Island. The Grade 11 student also leads the book club. In an email, she said, "The idea for the book drive came from a meeting we had with Kathy Powelson, a representative of Frontier College, back in October. She said that she would love to support us if we collected books and she would help us donate the books to a school (or a couple schools, depending on how many books we receive) in East Vancouver. It would likely be an elementary school, but possibly a high school as well." Frontier College is a non-profit organization that promotes literacy and learning. Schuller said, "[The book drive] is part of a larger initiative to help combat local illiteracy. We thought it would be really effective to have students helping students. We're mostly looking for children's and young adult's books, because they are going to children and youth."
Of the 15 book club members, five live on Bowen Island. Schuller said, "There are so many families on Bowen that we figured there must be countless old children's books lying around in houses."
The books suitable for Kindergartners to Grade 7 will find a home in the Britannia Elementary School and books for other audiences will go to the Canucks Family Education Centre.
And since there are countless families attending the Christmas craft fair at the school, this was a logical choice for drop off place and time. Community school coordinator Sarah Haxby confirmed that the box will be set up in the community use room that is dedicated to youth entrepreneurs this year.
Schuller said, "We are currently trying to set it up so the box that will stay at BICS for the following week, in case people miss the craft fair or have more books to drop off."
