Book Drives
Book Drives
Ewald organized his very first book drive while still being a 9th grader student at Washington Jr High School in Bentonville, AR, USA. Students and teachers responded enthusiastically, and approximately 1,100 books were collected.
A cargo company in South Africa agreed to ship the books to South Africa free of charge. Once the books arrived in South Africa, they were distributed by Mr. Roland Jones, a member of the Rotary Club in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, to schools he felt could put the books to good use.
The success of the first book drive encouraged Ewald to continue with the project.
The project continued to grow every year, and as word of mouth spread, more and more schools, companies and individuals became involved.
• Schools promoted the book drives in their news letters or on their television station at school.
• Schools challenged their students to competitions and rewarded the classroom or individual student who collected the most books.
• Schools included the book drives in their curriculum to teach students about other countries and the people living there.
• Schools participated by allowing their students to create posters to advertise the book drives and displaying these posters in the hallways.
• School librarians cleaned out their school libraries and donated all the books that would have been retired.
• Schools donated old textbooks that would have been recycled or sent to landfills and gave them a new lease on life.
