A Really BIG Thing to Know About

It seems to me that Goodwill Industries has gotten a mite picky lately. I'd heard it from others, but experienced it myself for the first time this weekend when I took a couple of boxes to our local 'superstore.' The boxes contained, among other things, some books - some good books. The first box was thrust back at me with the rather surly comment, "We don't take these, we only take novels." Then a second later, "Oh, these are cookbooks. Okay, yeah, we'll take cookbooks." Second pile..."No, we don't take reference books. No reference books." ...Really? Where's the goodwill?

Since it goes completely against the grain for me to toss out a book, no matter how much I don't need it, I turned next to the local public library. The librarian cheerfully took my donation, but also told me about a wonderful local initiative - Books for International Goodwill, or BIG.

Started 15 years ago by the Parole Rotary Club of Annapolis, BIG has shipped almost 4 million books to poor communities overseas and in this country to Indian Reservations and communities recovering from natural disasters. They have sent books to Africa, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and to US Service Personnel, Peace Corps volunteers and other mission-sponsored schools. BIG "believe(s) that the route to world peace and prosperity is through giving people the tools to learn how to feed their minds....."

BIG is an all volunteer organization, they have two drop-off points in the Annapolis area, and they will take anything - even reference books.

Now there's goodwill. It makes me happy.

BIG is having a book sale at their new warehouse on Saturday, September 18th. For more information go to http://www.big-books.org