By Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterLOCAL BOOKSTORE giants Sangster's donated almost $2 million worth of books to several school libraries worst affected by Hurricane Ivan, between Monday and yesterday morning.
Locksley Henry, managing director of the company, along with sales and marketing manager, Christopher Green, travelled to several schools in St. Elizabeth, Manchester and Westmoreland to make personal presentations to the schools which they had earmarked as some of the hardest hit.
Students and teaching staff at Munro College, St. Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) in St. Elizabeth; Mannings High School in Westmoreland and Holmwood Technical in Manchester were very grateful for the company's philanthropic gesture.
VERY PLEASED
"We lost a lot of books in the major subject areas due to Hurricane Ivan, so we are very pleased with Sangster's for what they have done. They are not only looking for us to buy from them. They are looking out for the education system and their response to our need has been very quick," said Marla Dixon-Newman, assistant librarian at STETHS.
"I can't express how happy we are," said Daphne Pringle of Mannings High School in Westmoreland. "The day Mr. Henry came to our school we were actually trying to salvage books damaged by the hurricane so I consider this sort of like a blessing."
"If they hadn't come to us, we would have been in the begging stage," added vice-principal of the school, Gloria Wagstaffe.
As a part of their contribution to schools affected by Hurricane Ivan, Sangster's has also pledged to sell books at cost to schools for a limited period. As an added bonus, the company intends to match the dollar value of whatever each school purchases with book donations.
