English teacher Jennifer Fulton recently held a book drive to give back to those schools in Long Island who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Dec. 7, Fulton and her husband loaded all the donated books that were donated into a moving truck after school and drove them up to Long Island on the following Saturday morning.

   “I was watching the news about the devastation and I was thinking about ways to get my classes involved,” Fulton said.

   Fulton had a Facebook conversation with her cousin, Michelle Montalbano, who is a teacher at Tangier Smith Elementary school in Long Island. She threw out ideas to Montalbano about things her classes could do to make a difference.  One of the things she ran by her was a book drive. Montalbano said anything would be helpful.

   “I ran it by my first period class and they all seemed interested in a book drive,” Fulton said.

   The book drive started out as just an in classroom drive. Fulton believed it would only be a few books donated by her own students. Junior Seyoung Oh asked Fulton if she could help out and turn it into her service project. With Fultons help, Oh brought awareness to the entire school and even other schools in the county. Oh came up with a flier with the title “Hurricane Sandy is a Book Thief!” and then posted them all around the school.

     While they received donations from multiple English classrooms, they also received a large donation from South County High School’s English department. South County donated an entire pickup truck of boxes of books and they continued to grow from there. 

   “We estimated around 1500-2000 boxes of books,” Fulton said. “We also had 80 boxes full of books.”

   When they arrived at Tangier Smith Elementary School in Long Island Fulton and her husband were greeted by the principal, teachers, students as well as news reporters and cameramen. Student volunteers from William Floyd High School’s Interact Club helped to unload the boxes from the truck, while Fulton spoke with the principal and news reporters.

   “I was expecting more people but in the end about 20-25 people were there along with reporters and cameramen,” Fulton said. “It was exciting to deliver the books to people who really needed them.”

   The teachers of the Long Island community are putting together a video to show students at the school what impact the book drive had on their community. Montallbano is overseeing the delivery of the books to schools that were impacted the most by Hurricane Sandy.