On Sunday, March 26, 2017 The RoboBees helped the St. Mary’s County Public Libraries and The Rotary Club of Lexington Park to pack up the more than 48,000 books which are being donated to Books for International Goodwill (B.I.G). Books for International Goodwill is an organization that, for 17 years now, has recycled used books, sending them to schools and libraries in developing communities around the world. The goal of B.I.G is to provide the basic tools for educating the public both in formal school settings and through community libraries.
To help B.I.G., the St. Mary’s Public Libraries collect and store books that are donated to the libraries throughout the year. In the spring the thousands of books collected are transported to the St. Mary’s County Fairgrounds where they are sold to the community at the Annual Friends of the Library used book sale. The remaining books not sold through the weekend, are then boxed and sent to the Parole, MD Rotary Club where they are combined with books from other libraries and donated to the B.I.G Project.
There were eleven members of The RoboBees, including current students, alumni, mentors, and parents, in attendance. Over the course of one and a half hours, The RoboBees and other volunteers filled 32, 7,200 ft3, boxes with books of all sizes. In addition to these, 1500 smaller boxes, which were used to transport the books to the Fairgrounds were organized and packed into a truck to return to the library storage, ready to be refilled in preparation for next year’s book sale.