A very large thank you to residents of the Peninsula, who came out in force recently at Mary Winspear Centre and bought hundreds of used – but in good condition – books. We offered bargain-basement prices and in four short hours, raised nearly $3,000, which will go into our Education Trust Fund.
This fund supports four scholarships to young women who’ve just graduated from Stelly’s, Parkland, Claremont and the Individual Learning Centre. They’ll now go on to colleges and universities with our congratulations. They follow in the footsteps of “our” students from the past who’ve studied biochemistry, psychology and environmental sciences (to name just a few subjects), both here at the University of Victoria and farther away, such as at McGill. One even recently attended Manhattan’s Institute of Merchandising. They will go far.
We were pleased with the remarkable variety of books on offer. They ranged widely from a “classics” section, to at least four copies of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead, to Victoria author Merna Forster’s 100 More Canadian Heroines, from a history of the Aztec nation to plenty of mysteries, including some page-turners from Canadian Linwood Barclay’s oeuvre. No wonder Peninsula residents lined up before the doors opened.
And who made this happen? My colleagues in the Saanich Peninsula Chapter of CFUW. We culled books from our own collections, emailed friends, relatives, and people we barely knew but thought they might be a “book person.” We blanketed the region with posters and then it was on to the job of assembling and sorting. We finished just in time for the doors to open.
Again, many thanks to everyone.
Betsy Ives, chair
CFUW Saanich Peninsula Book Sale
