"Students Help Philippine Libraries"

McCarthy-Towne Elementary School students recently made a contribution to the other side of the world after collecting 1,200 books and magazines to help start new libraries in the Philippines.

This project was initially brought to the attention of the McCarthy-Towne Student Council by Acton resident Rowena Jimenez, who began the Bagong Kulturang Pinoy, Inc. nonprofit organization to send books to the Philippines, and McCarthy-Towne parent Kristin Conant.

"They told us that these kids from the Philippines really don't have that many books, and they really like books, so we started getting them," fourth- grader Kevin Merrigan, 10 said.

The Student Council got busy creating drawings of thermometers for every classroom that would indicate how many books each classroom had raised.

In turn, the McCarthy-Towne students were up to the challenge.

"We made an announcement in front of a class that they should bring in books, and the next day, one girl brought in 92 books," fourth-grader Rachel Potentis, 9, said. "Our class raised two hundred and ten books, so we had to create five thermometers."

Fifth grade Dana Solomon said that her class also exceeded expectations. “Our thermometer started on the ground, and it went all the way up the wall because we had collected so many books,” Dana said.

Originally expecting to collect 500 books from the students which would equate to one book per student, the school ended up collecting 1,200 books and children’s magazines.

Students brought in their favorite children’s books that they thought Filipino children would enjoy.

“What’s so special is the children didn’t just bring in books that were old. A lot of them brought in books that were really important and special to them,” Catherine Seuss, a teacher at the school and an advisor to the Student Council said. Often, the student wrote inside the cover of the book about what they liked about the book, and sometimes included their address in the hopes that a Filipino child will write back to them and start a correspondence.”

“We brought in books that were special to us, and in some of those ones, we wrote, 'I really enjoyed reading this, and I hope that you will enjoy it too.'" Rachel said.

The students generally brought in picture books without references to American culture, such as Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, as the Filipino children had to be able to relate to the books. Among the more popular titles were Curious George and books by Dr. Seuss.

As part of the project, the Student Council, which is made up of fourth-to-sixth graders, had to inform all the younger students at the school about the project. Mostly, this task was accomplished during the “reading buddies” program, where the older students reads to younger students at the school.

"We really had to work together to get enough books for them to start a library, and so that’s what we did,” Kevin said.

As it takes two months to ship books from eastern United States to the Philippines, the McCarthy-Towne’s contribution is expected to arrive in the Philippines at the end of May.

Acton resident Rowena Jimenez, the head of Bagong Kulturang Pinoy, Inc. said that the McCarthy-Towne students seemed to get a lot out of the experience.

“When we first explained to the students, we explained where the Philippines is, what poverty is like, and how many Filipino kids are living a very different kind of life than McCarthy-Towne kids,” Jimenez said. “We made sure that they get involved in the issue, so they were not just a source of books, Rachel said, “It was fun because it made you feel happy that you were helping out other kids.”