A Night of Service with Promising Pages

Members of Christ Episcopal Church

There are many ways to spend a Friday night: catching up with friends, going out for a nice dinner, curling up with a good book for some rest and relaxation. It takes a special group of people to forgo these activities in order to give back to their community. Christ Episcopal Church did just this for their February 2^nd Dinner Family Service Night. Approximately 100 church members attended a night of dinner and volunteer work to help make care packages for mothers’ with children in the hospital and to support several Charlotte-based nonprofits. Promising Pages was one of these nonprofits, and we received many enthusiastic volunteers.

Intern Chloe Hughes and I set up stations to clean, sort and stamp children’s books donated to Promising Paged by Christ Episcopal Church. There were over 300 books donated that night, and we certainly needed a lot of help. In response, we were welcomed with open arms and busy hands.

One of our most enthusiastic helpers was a second grader named Griffin from Charlotte Latin School. Griffin excitedly ran back and forth to assist in stamping books. He was also very talkative, sharing that he loved to read and books in general. When I asked him what his favorite book was, he jumped in place, ready to stamp another book, saying, “I don’t have a favorite book, but I love adventure stories. I also like pirates a lot.” He then proceeded to sprint over to our sorting section.

Sorting books is an important part for Promising Pages as we later wrap these books to give as gifts to children who do not own books of their own. Wrapped books must be labeled according to their age group so as to match a child with his or her reading comprehension level. One of the members who helped us sort books was Per Mar Olin, a local librarian and a strong supporter of literacy, who said of Promising Pages, “It’s really great what you’re doing. Books are so important for everyone, especially children.”

We were able to end the night with all the donated books cleaned and sorted! Chloe then loaded up her car to take to a wrapping party she was hosting the next day. If you or someone you know would like to have a wrapping party or assist with Promising Pages in any way, please contact us at promisingpages@gmail.com. Promising Pages would like to give a big thanks to Christ Episcopal Church and encourage all of our readers to consider the community around you, give back, and keep the love of books alive!

More books and volunteers!

--Faith Lippard, Promising Pages Blogger