Book Drive for a School Overseas

Acts of Kindness by Real Families is a series of short interviews featuring stories about service to others.  Whether big or small, planned out or spontaneous, hearing about any act of kindness can inspire us to give more to those around us.  It’s fun to find new ways to show kindness in our communities, and I hope you will be inspired to get your kids involved in serving others through these creative ideas.

Although I usually interview someone else for this series, this time I am sharing a family service project we did last year.

What happened: My husband grew up in Papua New Guinea so he was very excited to hear about a local organisation – Books 4 PNG Kids – that collects books to create community and school libraries there.  We decided to get our sons’ classes involved by doing a presentation about the country, and handing out a flyer to the kids about the book collection.  I created a small notebook with pictures and basic facts about the country (flag, population, crops, about schools, interesting animals, etc) and also brought in a selection of items for the kids to touch and hold (hat, traditional clothing, wooden crafts, basket, woven bag, flag).  We were overwhelmed with the positive and generous response.  Between the two classes, we collected nearly over 350 books.  Every day for several weeks I was carrying a box of books to our car at school pick-up!

Just spent the past three hours writing a booklet/presentation for my boys’ classrooms as we are organising a book drive for a preschool my inlaws started 10 years ago in Papua New Guinea. Have so many things to do today but I am so glad I finished this! #bookdrive #serviceproject #png

A photo posted by Chelsea @ Moments A Day (@chelseamomentsaday) on Nov 4, 2014 at 6:01pm PST

How the experience affected your family: Our boys had visited the preschool in PNG where many of the books we collected went to (it was started by their grandparents), so the book collection was very exciting and real for them.  They also got involved at the site where the books are packed – sorting and taping up boxes to ship out.  It was very cool for them to get involved in the collection and the behind-the-scenes of packing up, too.  We all gained a deeper appreciation of the dedication and organisation it takes from the founders and volunteers of the organisation who do this awesome work.  Although the boys were 3 and 5 years old at the time, the whole family service project was spread out over two months altogether so it was pretty memorable for them and now – even 8 months later – they still bring it up from time to time.

Volunteer work over the weekend. The boys are collecting books in their classes and hubby is collecting medical books from the hospital to send to PNG, great family project before baby is born and I’m a bit preoccupied! #actsofkindness #52actsofkindness #bookdrive A photo posted by Chelsea @ Moments A Day (@chelseamomentsaday) on Nov 10, 2014 at 1:42pm PST

And it was really special to receive photos from the school!

Just a bit excited to have received photos from the preschool we collected books for last year. So glad they are enjoying them! #papuanewguinea #bookdrive #actsofkindness #serviceproject #love

A photo posted by Chelsea @ Moments A Day (@chelseamomentsaday) on Jun 23, 2015 at 3:05am PDT

Message to others: It seems overwhelming to do a service project of this type with young kids, but I learned that doing small steps over the course of a few weeks or months makes it a lot more practical.  It did take a bit of work to collect and take the books (especially for my husband, as I couldn’t lift huge boxes in my pregnant state) and honestly I was a bit apprehensive to ask our friends for donations, but I think collecting books was a lot easier than collecting money – so people were very interested in getting involved.  I would definitely give it a go if there’s a local organisation near you that has similar collections.

 

Over 300 board books collected for a preschool in Papua New Guinea started by my inlaws, thanks to my boys’ classmates. Now time to sort and drop them off to be shipped there! #52actsofkindness #familyservice #serviceproject #booksforkids

 

A photo posted by Chelsea @ Moments A Day (@chelseamomentsaday) on Dec 8, 2014 at 5:32pm PST

To find more ideas about serving with kids, click here.

If you are interested in contributing to the Acts of Service by Real Families series here at Moments A Day, please send an email describing your story to chelsea@momentsaday.com and I will be in touch soon. ~Chelsea