Mel and Cathy Jesson were greeted by an army of smiling students at Douglas Park Elementary on Friday (Nov. 6) as they delivered 1,000 new books for the school’s library.
“I’ve got goosebumps,” said Cathy, president of Black Bond Books.
“It’s so much fun. This is genuine.”
The Jessons made the generous donation after hearing that Douglas Park had been disqualified from an Indigo competition to win $10,000 for their library.
Indigo has since announced that there were errors in their competition and they will still be donating $10,000 and 445 books to the school.
Cathy hand-selected 700 of the 1,000 titles, and another 100 were donated by a local publishing distributor.
“It’s one of those things I think will grow, because I’ve shared it with some of my independent book sellers from across Canada, and I said ‘if you can come up with a school in need and help them out, it pays back,’” Cathy said.
The students were ecstatic as they tore open the boxes and flipped through the new books during their recess break on Friday.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Esther Schmit, principal at Douglas Park Elementary.
“Their faces are lighting up and they are just so happy to be sitting down and sorting through the books, picking their favourites and sharing with each other — it’s awesome.”
Each classroom will receive 100 books — or four new books per child — giving them new reading material to learn from.
“That’s just terrific,” Schmit said.
“I think the next big thing is buying book cases, but that’s a good problem to have.”
Douglas Park Elementary School students Hannah Murphy, In-Woo Park, Thomas Jung, Raiden Massie, Corinna Glass, Jerry Qui, Mira Martin and Davin Montin. Photo by Miranda Gathercole.