St Peter's College Textbooks Drive

Last year the school sent out the textbook lists for the next year as usual in September. But, I had several books which I would not be using in future and did not want to have to dump them in my dusty pile of old textbooks, I had accumulated over the years.

Then I thought to myself, surely other people face the same problem. That is when The Old Textbook Drive began.

Where the students’ textbooks that would previously take up space in their homes and gather dust, would be donated to underprivileged schools.

The school Executive approved the project and Ms Theron agreed to oversee it. The school was asked to donate their old textbooks. An email was sent out, informing the parents about the drive and the students were reminded regularly, via their respected grade WhatsApp group. To bring their donations to Ms Theron’s class. The drive was a success and managed to raise over 500 textbooks!

The books were sorted out by subject and grade and checked whether they were intact and in reasonable condition and then boxed. In March the books were donated to Leap Science and Maths School at the Akani Centre in Diepsloot. The school assists students from an underprivileged background, high need communities and has Mathematics, Physical Science and English as mandatory subjects. It has impressive matric pass of 93% with 78% obtaining a bachelor or diploma pass in the past five years. Ms Ncube, the Instructional leader, accepted the books on behalf of Leap School.

St Peter's supportive and giving culture really shown through with this drive. A big thank you to all the students that brought old books and to Ms Theron, the Executive and everyone who assisted in organising the books.

By Kumbirai Dzirini

Grade 11 student