Empty bookshelves at the newly formed Boys and Girls Club in Jeffersonville, Indiana, prompted a book drive that resulted in more than 1,000 books being donated by students

at River Valley Middle School.  The Boys and Girls Club opened in the spring of 2001 and immediately began to provide after-school opportunities for students in Greater Clark County Schools.  The director included time for reading in the activities but did not have a budget with which to provide a collection of books for the 500 club members, who range from elementary to high school age.  The principal of the nearest elementary school, Dave Weimer, learned of her dilemma and faxed a plea to the schools in the Greater Clark system.

      Sandy Schurr, a sixth grade teacher at River Valley, picked up on the fax and organized a donation program among the sixth grade teams.  The 300 students quickly responded by going through personal collections and bringing in used, but in good shape, books as donations.  The majority of the books were popular fiction titles, particularly series titles.  The school media center donated popular magazines.  By the end of one month stacks of boxes of books lined the classroom walls ready for pickup.

      According to Mrs. Schurr, not only did the students help others, but the book drive helped spark the desire for personal reading in the students who participated.  She and the other teachers involved in the project saw an increase in interest in reading.  As books would come in, students would browse through the daily donations and look for interesting titles.  Many of the books were duplicated in the classroom or media center collections, and students did ask for and read the titles that interested them.  The interest in reading has been reflected in increased library circulation statistics for the sixth grade class.

      Many of the students who participated in the book drive are also members of the Boys and Girls Club.  They have commented to their teachers about seeing younger club members reading books that they themselves had donated.  According to Mrs. Schurr: “In today’s society we see so much ‘take, take, take,’ and the students demonstrated that there still is good in the world.  They were eager to give to others.”  Another sixth grade teacher, Jan Scholes, concurred: “We have a very caring group of sixth graders this year.  They really took this project to heart.”  River Valley Middle School was one of the six schools named as a Community of Readers by the Middle Grades Reading Network, and with this book-drive project the reading promotion efforts have expanded outside of the building and into the community.