Recipients of the 2003 book drive included:

• two alternative schools and an orphanage in Trinidad,
• the Grenada children’s library in St. Georges,
• a well respected remedial reading program in Carriacou, as well as the island’s library and selected primary schools,
• the Bequia Community High School and Bishop’s College secondary school in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
• Roosevelt Douglas and St. John’s primary schools in Portsmouth, Dominica and the Lion’s Club of Dominica
• the Nevis public library in Charlestown.

In addition, Honorary Board Member Jane Anglim collected and shipped an equal number of books to Tobago for a secondary school library she is building.

Program Director Kathy Oberle is beginning to receive letters of acknowledgement and photos from the islands. These will be posted on the organization’s web site (www.boatersforbooks.org) as they are received.

“In many ways this was our most challenging year,” explains Kathy. “We effectively outgrew our storage garage and had to rent a facility to handle the overflow of books.”

“We must do a better job of fund raising this year so that we can permanently rent a storage unit to house the books and provide our volunteers enough room to sort and pack the books.”

Boaters for Books, Inc. has been providing books for Caribbean schools and libraries for five years. “As word of our mission spreads, we are getting specific requests from recipients,” says Kathy, “and that includes wish lists of books and reference materials desperately needed.”

New recipients for 2004 include the children of Montserrat, an island where three primary and one secondary school struggle to survive in the dusty shadow of its active volcano, the Wesley Primary School in Dominica, the Stephanie Browne Primary school on Union Island, the Anguilla National Library Service and the one primary school on Petit Martinique.

“We have wonderful volunteers on the islands and cruising among the islands. We rely on them to identify potential recipients and follow up once the books have been delivered,” explains Oberle, “we are always adding new schools and libraries and in fact, we’ll return to previous recipients if they have a continuing need.”

Tropical Shipping, Inc. provides transportation for the books from its Miami terminal to the Caribbean. U-Haul of Sarasota has provided a truck to haul the books from Punta Gorda to Miami. “Now if we could just convince UPS or Fedex to come onboard and carry books from our donors to us we would be in heaven,” says Kathy.