Sorting through two stacked pallets of books took nearly all morning, but the gathered teachers and SaskTel employees were an efficient team for the job — sorting, stamping, and packing books away during the SaskTel Pioneers’ annual book drive.
The books were certainly in good hands, as volunteer teachers worked together to fill boxes with books in preparation for delivery to a number of schools around the city.
The book drive is an initiative that the SaskTel Pioneers have organized for the last four years, with each branch around the province purchasing an incredible number of children’s books from First Books Canada to donate to their local schools.
In Moose Jaw, both the Prairie South School Division and the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division received a donation of books to distribute within schools.
“It's part of our literacy objectives to try and help promote literacy, so we do this across the province,” said Kristian Sjoberg, president of the SaskTel Pioneers here in Moose Jaw.
Sjoberg estimated that the Pioneers had around 6,000 pounds of books delivered to Moose Jaw this year, most of which are titles that have been on shelves for a while and have returned to storage.
The books are purchased from the distributor’s warehouse at an incredibly low price — pennies on the dollar, Sjoberg shared — and given away by the Pioneers for free.
“(This way), the school divisions can do whatever they want with them. They give them out to kids, give them to the teachers to use in their classrooms, whatever they want,” said Sjoberg.
The books will be used in a number of different ways, either kept in the classrooms or sent home with kids as donations or prizes. Some titles will be made into take-home reading kits with fun activities to encourage reading.
The superintendents of learning from both school divisions were very pleased to see the support from the Pioneer’s donation.
“The love of literacy is something that's so important for kids,” said Ward Strueby, from Holy Trinity. “And so for some families and for some kids, this helps build those libraries in their homes. . . and we really appreciate all the support that we get for our schools.”
“Anytime we can get new books for kids, it's a great day,” said Lori Meyer, from Prairie South. “We're really pleased to be able to offer those to our schools, thanks to the generosity of the club here.”
The SaskTel Pioneers is just one wing of charity under the SaskTel umbrella, including the TelCare fund and the EnviroCare program.
The Moose Jaw branch actually has a number of initiatives they implement in the community — like providing teddy bears to emergency responders as comfort for kids in the midst of tragedy, and donating backpacks full of school supplies to kids at the beginning of the school year.
“The international Pioneers. . . look at us as a shining example of how the Pioneers should be run and how, when a corporation stands behind its charity wing, how it benefits everyone,” said Sjoberg. “And it's just fantastic.”
