Bentonville/Bella Vista Rotary Club
Presentations were given at various Rotary Clubs, one of them being the Bentonville/Bella Vista Daybreak Rotary Club in Bentonville, Arkansas. The interest of this Rotary Club was piqued and they got involved in so many ways.They supplied a storage unit to store the books.
They helped to collect and pack the books.
They organized the use of a warehouse where the books can be packed.
They liaised with a large retail company to transport the books from Bentonville, Arkansas to Houston, Texas.
When Ewald started college, the Bentonville/Bella Vista Rotary Club offered to take over organizing the book drives and has been running them ever since.
Under the auspices of this Rotary Club, and thanks to the leadership of Rotarians Ed Wheeler and Bob Alberson, the book drive has continued to go from strength to strength as word of mouth spread.
The Interact Club of Bentonville HighSchool also got involved and helped with the placement of advertisements at the various schools in the Bentonville school district.
The whole club then helped with the packing of the books on Book Packing day.
As the project continued to grow, even more schools and individuals started contributing to the book drives.
Associates in the Logistics and Transportation departments at Walmart competed to see who could contribute the most books. More Walmart departments became involved when collection points were set up at the home office's campus.
This project is a good example of the traditional African saying: 'It takes a whole village to raise a child". Without the involvement of the whole community and all the generous contributions from students, teachers, individuals and companies, these book drives could never have taken place.
