My new project at work has me so excited I have to share!
On Wednesday I managed to convince a team of colleagues that commemorating Youth Day would be better served by helping amass books for school libraries than by creating posters which won't be read; in essence, I started a book drive for two of our corporate social responsibility projects (one of which is a high school focusing on maths, science and technology, and the other, and Aids orphanage that runs a permaculture programme and has started Early Childhood Education classes to get kids learning the basics right off the bat). (Please excuse the run-on sentence.)
On Friday, at 16:30, I was given the go-ahead to use part of the "commemorative days" budget to buy new books, to help kick-start the book drive and fill one of the shelves we're displaying - hoping to inspire the rest of the company to start looking through their collections for suitable fare.
As a Fanatics member, I was privy to the Exclusive Books warehouse sale in Gauteng, which ended on Sunday. MadCat and I spent a good four hours dragging around boxes that rapidly filled with books as we stormed the shelves in between masses of others happily browsing and buying. We ended up being the last two customers (naturally), busy sorting through five boxes of books ranging from African history to science fiction, crime thrillers set in South Africa and Uganda, fantasy novels, books on art and becoming an artist, nature, astronomy, humour (and The Littlest Witch!), satire, kids' books and, of course, loads of science.
The best part? We were paying by weight, and the books would have cost around R3500; upon hearing that we had a CSR budget of R200, the warehouse owner gave us ALL the books - including my two personal boxes - for that amount! I'd estimate we ended up with around R10 000 worth of books (at normal prices) - AND she told us to come back in three months, when she's restocked her warehouse and has given away the rest of the books she has available.
This is SO exciting! It's made me even more determined to get my librarian qualification. What a dream job - warehouse manager for the overflow of books that ultimately benefit CSR projects to further the love of reading!
Now, off to pore over my own boxes of books ... dusty books, is there a better smell? I think not!
Popular Posts
-
As part of my research for my tattoo of amazing women, I've been looking for pics of that uber-femme assassin, Modesty Blaise. I'v... -
I seriously need to get back to Hogsback for some downtime. It's a village in the Amatola mountains of the Eastern Cape, and the place w...
-
I'm working on the design for my next tattoo - books are in my DNA - and in my searches for pictures that might capture the idea behin...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Say your say.
Remember kids: comments on posts older than 7 days are moderated.