In the aftermath of a fire that destroyed its library on June 15, Pollard-McCall Junior High School has found a good friend in Georgia Pacific — and GP is hoping other businesses will join the effort.
Georgia-Pacific has partnered with the school to raise funds to rebuild the library, by sponsoring an online fundraiser.
“We, here at Georgia-Pacific, look at the needs of of the community and create the most value for those needs,” said Jason Daniel, manager of public affairs at Georgia-Pacific at the Brewton mill. “The school losing their library we felt was certainly a pressing need and we wanted to help them by raising funds. We want to urge other organizations to get involved to off set the funds needed to build and furnish a new library. All the books that come to the library will be those that are requested and will be digitalized so it won’t be extra work or a burden on those who work at the library.”
By going online to www.titlewish.com/100203, donations can be made to make sure the school gets just what it needs. Titlewish is a free online donation program that allows schools to use 100 percent of donated funds to purchase materials from Follett Library Services. Each dollar goes directly to helping provide the best education possible.
Sarah Anne Fountain, media specialist at the Pollard-McCall School library, said that plans are under way to begin rebuilding.
“The bid has been awarded,” Fountain said. “We hope something will be going on in the next few weeks.”
But beyond the physical structure of the library, the school lost all of its contents.
“We lost everything in the library, including equipment such as computers, projection material and the school’s only Smartboard,” Fountain said. “A lot of our books are now out of print and can’t be replaced. By donating to the Web site, a donor can print out a receipt for their donation for tax purposes.”
The school’s materials are slowly being replenished.
“I have always encouraged our teachers to have books in their classrooms and thankfully, those are still there,” Fountain said. “We have had some donations of books from the Santa Rosa County School System, and a number of books that we had collected to send to the tornado victims had not been taken, so we have those books, as well as those that have been donated by others.”
Fountain said there are several car trunks holding books and First United Methodist Church in Brewton has donated a collection of books, but the school has nowhere to put them right now. As soon as the library is rebuilt, they will know just what all they do have and what they need, but right now donations will be accepted.