by Sarah Heckman and Sean Cullen, Alvernia University

    

We at Alvernia University have been able to win the Better World Book Drive for two consecutive years. Coming in with over 1,000 books collected, we’ve been asked how we have managed to collect so many books. We’d like to share some tips so that your chapter can gain success in supporting this wonderful organization Sigma Tau Delta has so closely connected with.

 

For the 2009 drive Alvernia senior Josh Smith led the book drive by teaming up with three other campus organizations. He not only focused on the collecting around our campus, but also outreached to the larger community. They had boxes available at all public locations across the county from libraries to local high schools. The support from our entire campus and chapter sponsors, Beth DeMeo and Carrie Fitzpatrick, helped to make all the difference. It was a lot of work collecting the books out of the boxes each week with all of the varying locations, but the teamwork made it all worth the while.

 

This year we felt determined to continue with the legacy that Josh Smith left behind. With such big shoes to fill for the next year, it quickly became apparent that we needed new ideas in order to accomplish this task. We used many of our resources the year before, but we still proceeded to clean out what was left in professors' offices, student bookshelves and local libraries. We expanded our search to our members’ homes. We failed to team up with other campus organizations, but fulfilled the drive solely as a Sigma Tau Delta chapter. With many of our members living within a three-hour drive of campus we used our home high school’s warehouses as a base for collecting books. Jessica Slavin, a junior, was successful working closely with her middle school’s secretary to bring up multiple car loads of boxes, along with Lauren Rocchino, whose father jumped on board to support the cause and managed to fill another van with books. It was the effort of all of these members, and our other members who took the time to move and pack the books, that brought our accepted book count to over 1,000.

After a long day over winter break all of the books were sorted and boxed. The teamwork of our small chapter was successful and rewarding. We suggest breaking down typical boundaries by going to any place that may give you permission to collect books. It never hurts to ask to place a box anywhere in the community. Better World Books has a powerful mission and sharing that mission makes people want to give what they're not using. The mission truly sells itself; we just need to be the messengers to spread the word to our communities.

(Photo Courtesy of Lauren Rocchino)