{balki Blog}
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As some of you know, I always am ready for an opportunity to do my share of community service; when I saw an event on MiPL seeking volunteers to help sort books at School House Supplies (SHS), I signed up in earnest!

I was pleasantly surprised at the big turnout for the event - there were almost 30 volunteers from various organizations!  I was also very impressed by the work SHS does for the Portland public schools.  The organization donated over 170K books to schools so far!

This morning we were helping sort the 5000+ books donated by Powell’s Books.  We had great fun working together and passing silly comments on the book titles and pictures.  Many books were old but I think we got a decent yield of around 40% (you see, not all books donated are consumable by K-12 students and their teachers, hence the need for sorting.  The remaining books are then donated or sold to other organizations).

We also had a fun competition where volunteers got to show off funny book titles they found in the stash and one volunteer got a prize for the best pick (today’s winner was a girl who found a book titled “Guide to Marriage and/or Sex” by Dave Barry)

Volunteers also get to take home a few books of their choice (from the “throw-away pile”) as a token of appreciation.  I picked up a couple books including and TrumpNation and Dealing With Darwin)

I had great fun at SHS and I highly recommend volunteering there if you are looking to contribute through community-service.