The new crew of volunteers from the Biloxi Hands On site arrived today – from Berkley! What a great group of college students and university staff! All of our volunteers have been so grateful, appreciative, and happy. We are so lucky to work with such phenomenal women and men.

Wednesday was, yet again, unbelievable…

We brainstormed with the entire team to devise an organizational plan for the warehouse. We’re collecting everything we need about the books still here (carton quantity, weight, ISBN, etc.)….and organizing them into upcoming book distributions. To echo a comment Kevin made – we could have walked out of Bernice at the end of the day and be set for the next two book distributions. But….we’re going back Thursday for a few hours. I can’t wait.

Dinner was so much fun last night – and not just because I was hungry. It felt like a gigantic family dinner – complete with laughter, stories, discussions, and a feeling of togetherness. Ponchatoulas, an incredible New Orleans-style restaurant in Ruston, built a table for 30 and proceeded to dish out more crawfish, shrimp, fried everything, and salads than I have seen in quite some time.

Ms. Kay and her husband Mike joined us for dinner and regaled us with exciting travel stories about First Book. Kay, Mike, and the rest of the team from the Even Start Consortium have traveled to First Book distributions in Jackson, Alexandria, Dallas, Atlanta and maybe some others (I lost count). They would fill a U-Haul with books, take them back to the warehouse, sort through them, and build sets for the students on the Coast. They then carried these books down to schools and programs along the Coast, hosted assemblies in classrooms or auditoriums, and distributed these books to the children. Ms. Kay and Ms. Janice don their fairy wings and wave their magic wands while Ms. Karen manages the whole operation. According to Mike, it is quite spectacular! He also mentioned something always goes terribly wrong– flat tires, broken shower curtains – but he cherishes every moment. This was all coming from the man who, initially, was not too excited about driving the ‘book fairies’ around the South – how could you not be excited about that?

We are so honored to have such amazing people – like Ms. Kay, Americorps NCCC volunteers, Hands-On network volunteers, and more – making First Book’s mission a reality…and making our distributions so great and so much fun!

Rachael

Thursday, 7:25 a.m.