Local Teacher Fundraising to Fill African School Libraries, Nurture Love of Reading

A local elementary school teacher with a heart of gold has collected 20,000 books across the East End — and now she's kickstarted a funding campaign to help defray shipping costs.

Kyrn Olson's GoFundMe, "Create Malawi School Libraries," has raised $5,185 of its $12,000 goal so far.

Olson, who teaches science at the elementary school in Sag Harbor, said her current volunteer project is to help create school libraries in the existing schools that surround the Jacaranda School for Orphans, in Malawi, Africa.

"I have been privileged to work with this school and to meet and know the many students who live and learn here," she wrote on the GoFundMe page.

Olson said she has collected 20,000 new and used books to stock the new libraries; many of the books have been donated by the school districts and public libraries on the East End — and even children.

"The students of these schools and libraries have become impassioned about helping the children of this very impoverished country and have given them some of their most favored books," she said.

Luc Deschamps and Marie DeSilva, directors at the Jacaranda School for Orphans, have already secured buildings for the new libraries in the surrounding villages, Olson said.

The development of the new school libraries will commence in partnership with Ministry of Education and Olson's contact, she said, is the district education manager, who is in charge of all schools in the Blantyre area.

When asked if the schools were interested in participating in the project, more than 38 schools applied, she said.

In order to open a school library, 1,500 books are needed, Olson said. Funds raised from the GoFundMe will be used to meet shipping costs; she has secured a shipping company that will provide a container, which will transport the books from Sag Harbor to Blantyre, Africa.

"Thousands of children will benefit from this project, children that are so eager to learn. Please know that your donation and generosity will be deeply appreciated," she wrote. "The children, both in Malawi and here on the East End of Long Island, the personnel at the libraries and schools that donated the books, and myself, are very grateful for any and all donations made for this worthy cause."

Receipts can be made available for tax records, she said.

Photo courtesy of GoFundMe.