In a little office adjacent to the library at Douglas Park Elementary School, hundreds of brand new books sit in boxes, awaiting the eager eyes of students.
An Indigo contest mishap last fall led to nearly $16,000 being donated to the school’s library, after Douglas Park was disqualified from a $10,000 book competition they thought they had won.
The community rallied in support, with Black Bond Books donating 1,000 books, and Indigo admitting to errors in the competition and honouring the school’s win by donating $10,000 and 445 books.
But the brand new collection has yet to make it into classrooms.
There are hundreds of books to laminate, barcode and enter into the library’s computer system, and a budget for only one library technician to work one day a week.
With the majority of the books remaining boxed up in the office, the process is now being helped thanks to the support of the Langley Lions.
The group made a $3,000 donation to the school that will go towards hiring extra help to process the new books.
The money was raised through the club’s bingo nights, held every Tuesday evening at the Langley Lions Senior Citizens Housing Society. The bingo nights are both a fundraising effort, and a social event for seniors.
Lions members Mel and Irene Stokes, John Manuel and Jo-Anne Clark presented the cheque to Douglas Park principal Esther Schmidt on Friday, Feb. 12.