Sales of some good books will help spread the love of reading with Literacy Central Vancouver Island clients.
Rotary Club of Nanaimo stopped by the organization’s Well-Read Books store in downtown Nanaimo with a cheque for $20,000 on Thursday, Jan. 18.
The donation is a portion of the money raised from the club’s Rotary Used Book Sale this past fall. Rotarians hold sales every spring and fall at Nanaimo North Town Centre, offering thousands of books donated from the community. The sales are so popular that, at just $3 per book, each sale raises about $100,000.
Rebecca Taylor, Rotary Club of Nanaimo president, said a number of local organizations benefit from book sale proceeds, distributed through the club’s community grants and community partnership committees. Rotary also supports international projects and the club’s youth exchange, for example, but most of the money raised stays local.
Each year the club’s 69 members and volunteers put in about 3,000 volunteer hours sorting books.
“We’re very fortunate because Nanaimo North Town Centre provides the space for us, not only to do the sale, but to store and sort our books throughout the year,” Taylor said. “If we didn’t have that we certainly wouldn’t be able to give as much money as we do.”
Book sale proceeds support literacy internationally as well as at home.
“We do support literacy, in general, by the book sale and some of the international projects increase literacy, especially for women,” said Janice Furevick, Rotary Club of Nanaimo board director.
The club gives $100 certificates to all Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district schools to pick out free books for their libraries at the book sales, but a main focus for literacy support locally is through Literacy Central Vancouver Island’s programs.
“Something we’re hearing from our family literacy programming is this tremendous need for a lot of school-based … volunteers, for people to do a reading hour with kids, to do tutoring, heavy one-on-one support,” said Gerald Halaburn, LCVI executive director. “It’s interesting, the need for actual books, because so many children don’t have access.”
The organization’s support programs include tutoring which matches volunteers with learners to help improve their reading and writing capabilities. Halaburn said there’s a need for “document literacy,” helping people interpret and fill out forms.
“Digital literacy is an area where we’re seeing a tremendous amount of demand, like how to use e-mail,” he said. “So much is online now … It’s almost every day now we see drop-in learners coming in and that’s one of their main things. They don’t know how to fill in an online form or they struggle with logging into Zoom or setting up an account.”
Donations like Rotary’s, he said, allow LCVI to run family and youth literacy programs and English as a second language support. Robert Grant, LCVI treasurer, said children of refugee families are helping their parents learn English, “because children pick up languages much faster.”
LCVI also offers help with math literacy, tutoring tailored to specific needs of Indigenous people, and other services. Well-Read Books offers a huge selection, and sales at the store support the organization’s operations.
“We do get a lot of support from the provincial government and other organizations, but of course, it’s never enough, so every contribution really empowers us to be able to meet the needs,” Halaburn said.
Rotary Club of Nanaimo’s next book sale happens April 5-14.
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