Cruise passengers donate 1,000 books to western schools

WESTERN BUREAU:

Fifteen schools from across St James, Trelawny, and St Elizabeth have received a share of 1,000 reading books donated to their respective libraries on Wednesday, courtesy of the Festival at Sea Children’s Book Drive.

The book drive has been carried out by the San Francisco-based Blue World Travel Corporation travel agency for the past 34 years. The donation took place at Historic Falmouth Port in Trelawny to mark its second staging in Jamaica, under the theme ‘Homecoming’. The drive was previously held in Jamaica in 2023.

Patricia Scarlett-Forrester, the principal of St Elizabeth-based Pisgah Primary and Infant School, expressed appreciation for the opportunity to increase her students’ exposure to literacy growth and to expand her school’s library offerings.

“It was an enlightening experience, and the students were excited about the fact that they were exposed to different genres of books. It was also a good opportunity for our students because it gave them exposure to go out and be among other students from other places,” said Scarlett-Forrester.

“We got a box of reading books from this event that we are going to use in our library. We had just gotten a library donated to us from the Corner Library Foundation, where they repurpose old refrigerators to become libraries, and we needed books for that library,” Scarlett-Forrester explained.

Patricia Yarbrough, the president of Blue World Travel and the founder of the initiative, said the book donation was made possible through the generosity of the Festival at Sea cruise ship’s passengers and their desire to promote literacy throughout the drive.

“Our passengers are the ones who actually brought all these books for the schools’ libraries, and we are so happy that our passengers have taken the time to purchase these books and bring them down. We wanted to give back as we come to visit these wonderful islands and they host us, and we wanted to do something special where we could say ‘thank you’ for hosting us, and we thought there was nothing better than to bring a book to children,” said Yarbrough.

The donation comes at a time when several schools across western Jamaica are still in recovery mode following the devastating passage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28 last year. The impact of the Category 5 hurricane resulted in numerous institutions suffering damage to their physical structures and loss of various learning supplies and equipment.

Janet Silvera, the founder of the Montego Bay-based Sarah’s Children charity, said that it was an honour to work alongside the Festival at Sea Children’s Book Drive coordinators for this year’s staging of the event, having previously collaborated with them during their last visit to Jamaica in 2023.

“Changing a child’s future does not always require grand gestures. Sometimes it begins with something as simple as placing the right book in the right child’s hands at the right moment. That is why this donation of 1,000 books is so significant as every one of those books carries the potential to unlock imagination, build confidence, and open doors that might otherwise have remained closed,” said Silvera.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com