Volunteering Your Home For the Holidays With Stacks of Books
One woman with a guest bedroom filled with books is set to give 600 elementary students each a holiday gift.
Frances Robinson has 600 books piled up in her guest bedroom. She’s not a hoarder, a book vendor, or even a speed-reader, however. The books aren’t even hers.
Robinson, along with fellow parishioners at Trinity Church Boston, volunteers weekly at the Paul A. Dever Elementary School in Dorchester. And while volunteering is not something new for Robinson, this holiday season she took her charity work to her home.
Robinson and a group of parishioners decided they wanted to collect 600 new books as holiday gifts for the 600 students at the Dever School.
“It’s a school where some of the most disadvantaged students in the city go to,’’ Robinson said over the phone. “We go in as literacy volunteers, work in classrooms with teachers, and teach reading and anything related to that.’’
The volunteer group thought it would be a good idea to give the students each their own book to read over the holidays. They put a ‘this book belongs to’ tag on each book so they could write their name. Robinson said it was important because it was a book they could call their own.
“We got all new books, because we could choose books that were age appropriate because of the diversity for children receiving them,’’ she said. “People they might never meet or see really care about them.’’
Robinson said a book is a powerful thing to have.
“It supports the teaching,’’ she said. “They [teachers] are working so hard to teach them to read and they go away for break and a lot of that gets lost.’’
The students might not have books available during their two weeks of winter break, said Robinson.
Robinson and the group set up an Amazon wish list for people, parishioners and others, to order books for the students – all the books were sent to Robinson’s house. People could also contribute with cash or check donation.
The team has been going to Robinson’s house where they have been packing up individual boxes for each classroom.
Her house has been filled with cardboard from the Amazon orders and she has developed a relationship with the UPS workers and the mailmen.
“They are happy to be a part of it,’’ she said.
When she first started the collection, Robinson was storing the books on an old church pew in her front hall. Now that there are more she has had to move them to a guest bedroom.
“Every night before bed I go in and count them,’’ she said.
They were able to collect enough books to give one per student. Robinson and the team are going to pile the books in a few cars and take them to the school on Friday morning. They plan to bring a box of books to each room.
“The teacher can distribute them,’’ she said. “Walking in with the gifts can be disruptive.’’
Robinson said the team has volunteered with the school in many ways. She put emphasis on the idea of asking the school what they need, not what the team wants to do.
Robinson said, “We look at these children as our children.’’
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