Leesburg Elementary Holds Used Book Sale

Leesburg Elementary sold the past to pay for the future on Saturday when they held their first-ever used book sale to benefit the school's Reading Resource Library. The PTO is hoping to raise $3,000 from the event to buy new non-fiction books for the center.

The Reading Resource Library isn't part of the main school library. Teachers use it to check out books that they then incorporate into their lessons. While there are plenty of storybooks, the school is trying to add more books about math, art, science, etc. into the collection.

Organizer Heather Bensel said she came up with the idea for the book sale after hosting a series of cocktail parties at her home. She would tell people to bring used books with them to swap with the other guests. "By the time we were done, I still had three good-sized bags of books left," Bensel said. "So I told [the PTO] that we should have a sale."

Additional donations came from families and a notice posted on the Freecycle Loudoun message board. While the book prices ranged from 25 cents for softcover books to $2.00 for hardback books, there were also some new and specialty books that fetched a higher price. For instance, they were offering a new hardback set of the Twilight series for $10.00.

The book sale ran from 8 AM to 1 PM in the Exeter clubhouse, and the PTO provided coffee and donuts for the attendees. At around 9:30, there were several families browsing for books, which ranged from paperback fiction to board books and weight-loss guides.

"We've been steady," Bensel said of the sale so far. As this is the first time the PTO has ever held a book sale, whether or not they do it again will depend on how much money they end up raising. "It's our experiment," Bensel said.