March 10, 2022 – April 25, 2022

Description and Goals (Initial Plan)

To collaborate Jaya’s art skills and my service group to raise funds for the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya school library construction.
The plan:
I. Meet with Jaya to discuss the logistics of our book shop. We will use the books donated to the RTR service group by the OSC community to sell in our book shop. Jaya will focus more on the designs for the shop and posters advertising our shop while I will take care of getting it out to the community and handling the monetary aspects of this project.
II. Our target fund is 50,000LKR, and we plan to sell each book at 250LKR. We also plan to find some time during free blocks to reach out to the primary school demographic to sell more of the primary books we were donated. Therefore, we aim to sell 200 books in the span of 4 weeks.
III. Our main time to sell these books would be on Wednesdays, which is when our Room To Read service organizes Books and Cookies talks for the OSC community from teachers or students discussing books or topics they found interesting.
Iv. Long term, we hope to pass this project on to the future Room To Read Leaders – Eleez and Thevuni – to leave behind a final initiative. We hope this CAS project will help set up the future leaders of this service and give them something to start with if they see fit.

Process:

The first step to opening up a book store for Room To Read is building our goals. Our main long-term goal is to create a consistently functioning bookstore at OSC to provide a steady flow of income for my service, OSC’s Room To Read. As this service is constantly looking for projects and schools to help around the community area, it would be ideal to have a consistent fundraiser which is run by students. Not only does this support our partner schools, but it also offers the next generation of students from OSC the opportunity to participate in service for their CAS or service. Additionally, having a second-hand bookstore using the books given to us by the OSC community would be sustainable, allowing our school to reuse books as opposed to throwing them out. Not only would reselling books offer funds to our local partner school, but it would also benefit the OSC community by purchasing these books and having an ethical medium to let go of books cluttering their house. After seeing the consistent success of our annual book drive, where we request used book donations to resell to raise funds, it would be a reliable source of raising money for our service.

After highlighting the main goal of this project, we looked towards the next step, which was reaching out to the OSCs Room To Read to get the support of the service members and advisers to initiate this. After meeting with Mrs. Lockwood, who was excited about the project, we worked towards meeting with Dr. Kleiss – the head of the school- to get permission to start this second-hand book store. Prior to meeting with her, it was important to set up a presentation that ironed out the benefits, justification, and unclear aspects of this project. We compiled a presentation as a request for the book store in hopes that she would be on board.

To set the wheels in motion, we met with Dr. Kleiss to set up a time for the meeting. Once it was settled, we met with her during lunchtime and presented our ideas. Her main concern was with the location of the book store, discussing how the empty testing space at the front office area was taken by the SCN but they had not used it. That afternoon, she got back to us saying the SCN was ok with giving us the space. This room was ideal for our book store as its windows opened up to the cafe area and its location was right by the entrance of the school, thus being ideal for both parents and students. Once we heard the great news, we immediately got to planning. We met with the leader of Housing for Habitat to discuss the possibility of making bookshelves for our store, and they were happy to partner up for this project.

Presenting our idea to Dr. Kleiss

After the progress we made, I re-evaluated Jaya and I’s CAS project goals. We had said we wanted to set up a temporary second-hand bookstore to get the ball rolling on this project. However, after we discussed our goals of selling books to start raising some funds, we thought it would be better to focus our attention on the real project at hand. We found it would be more beneficial to set up the groundwork for the next generation of leaders on this project, by setting up a space, advertising that it is coming soon, creating partners to set up bookshelves, and making the space welcoming. This would allow for the success of our long-term goal as opposed to our short-term goal of raising a sum temporarily. Investing our time into something that will have a more lasting impact on the success of our service, as opposed to raising funds to raise funds, will have a lasting impact on the outcome of our more broad service goal of “spread the joy of reading.”

What Now?

Now that we officially have a space for our bookstore, it is important that we do not lose momentum on the project. Firstly, we must focus on the logistics of our bookstore. We should start thinking about how it will run and from when. Currently, our plan is to at least have it running once a week during service after school on Thursday, but we plan to hold it open during lunchtime. We must also think about how it will be set up and organized. For this, we will start planning out the space and where all the furniture that will be supplied by Housing for Habitat will be. Additionally, my partner Jaya has made the posters for before and when the book store opens, to spread the word. Below are the copies:

Also, Jaya has already started planning how she will paint the space, to make it a more welcoming area. Now that we have a space and permission to start, I will also be setting up a plan for how this business will run, including possible pricing for our books and what is required to make it run smoothly. I will be sharing this poster with the community, through the bulletin board and the physical campus. Now that we have a steady foundation for this bookstore, I am hopeful for what is to come.

Learning Outcomes:

Despite being the start, we have already tackled some of the CAS learning outcomes during this project. I have developed my presentation skills, specifically when sharing a proposal of an idea. I have also demonstrated developing a new skill, which is initiating a nonprofit business. This connects to developing my collaboration skills, as I have had to coordinate with my partner Jaya and the service group RTR we are working with. This collaboration has shown me the importance of working collectively as everyone has their strengths which can help progress a project successfully. By initiating this project, I have shown commitment to my service and CAS, as I have dedicated time and effort to building something for the future of my service. I have also demonstrated engagement with issues of global significance, as I am working on this project to fund a local school and their need, specifically with their library. Additionally, as this is a second-hand book store, it would be eco-conscious, connecting to our school’s aims of being an eco-school and reducing our waste.