Rotary Club sends books to Haiti, Jamaica

Members of Thunder Bay's Rotary Clubs spent the day packing Wednesday.

They were packing up boxes full of books to be shipped to Haiti and Jamaica to encourage literacy efforts in those countries.

The Rotary Race to Literacy Book Drive Project is both a national and an international campaign, with people from all over the world donating gently used books to help promote literacy. The project is trying to break the world record for the most books donated to charity in seven days.

The current record was set two years ago in California, with nearly 243,000 books donated. Although getting into the Guinness Book of World Records is one goal, former Port Arthur Rotary president Maria Hudolin says it isn’t the project’s only focus.

In Haiti and Jamaica, a lack of reading material for early childhood education is a serious and significant problem.

The books collected will be donated to both countries May 1 through May 7. About 1,500 books from Thunder Bay will be part of the donation.