The projected created by Marsha Whitney when she took Landmark Education’s SELP program, which ended up involving a large book donation to a primary school, was highlighted on April 10th by the Barbados Today Newspaper. Here is the story.

Huge book donation for All Saints Library

The students, staff and administration of the All Saints Primary School in St. Peter are about to get a gift they will cherish for generations.

Thanks to the caring consideration of neighbours and parents of students at the school and a group of kind-hearted Americans in Central Florida, who have never been near the school, students are about to receive a gift of hundreds of new and used books for their library.

Just secondly, after leading a major book collection drive, American Marsha Whitney organized a fundraising tennis tournament in her hometown of Bartow, to ensure they have the finances to ship the books to Barbados.

However, thanks to the generosity of Laparkan’s Sales and marketing Manager in Barbados, John Marshall, and manager of North American operations out of the Miami office, Marvin Singh, Whitney revealed in a telephone interview with Barbados Today that Laparkan had agreed to ship the books at no charge.

What this means, Whitney explained, is that they can now redirect US $400 toward the purchase of new books for All Saints, to add to the near 600 “clean used books” they have already started to pack.

Now, with the involvement of head librarian, Linda Chancey, who has agreed to purchase the books using her “Friends of the Library” discount, the students of the St. Peter school can look forward to even more reading material in the 50 cubic foot package being shipped by Laparkan.

Explaining that all involved in the project had been touched by the opportunity to promote reading among children, Whitney revealed that it all started three months ago when a friend in Bartow, Theresa Orth, reported that Ingrid Cooper, a neighbor of the school, was looking for books to stock the school library.

Apparently, Whitney added, Cooper had spoken to a neighbour about her desire, and that neighbour happened to be Theresa Orth’s mother – and from there the book search took on new life.

“I want the school [All Saints] to know how much they have contributed to us with this project”, Whitney said. “We have created agreement with people in Central Florida that we are all in this world together and caring about others, and sharing has an impact on us as well as the receivers.”