One Thing I Learned While Volunteering

A few weeks back myself and one of Patch's interns for the summer, Margarita Delapaz, volunteered a little bit for Books for Africa, a really cool nonprofit organization in Smyrna that collects books for shipment to students across Africa.

It was a pretty simple way to spend a few hours. Giant shipments of books come into their Smyrna warehouse from across the country. Most of what I saw seemed to come from school systems: discarded science and math books, instructional booklets, classic literature, et cetera. Our job was to organize them by grade and subject or category. Books written in English are in high demand over there because it's the language of business. If you want to succeed, you need to be able to speak English.

But what struck me while I was sorting through about 1,000 Florida biology books was a sign posted above me detailing the kinds of books that were to be discarded. Books that people over there had essentially no use for. The list is kind of revealing. A lot of the stuff that sells by the truckload in the United States is on the list: cookbooks, magazines, self-help books, diet books.

Some of the stuff is on that list for practical reasons, but it's a list that makes you think. It made me think. We've got a lot of time to think about ourselves over here. I suppose that's something to be thankful for ultimately.