Veritable library collected for Uganda children

Dozens of Newport Harbor High School students packed hundreds of boxes of books into a 53-foot-long, 18-wheel truck parked in front of the Randle house in the Dover Shores neighborhood of Newport Beach on Monday afternoon.

The boxes were the result of a four-month-long effort by the students to collect books for children in war-torn Northern Uganda. By hitting local garage sales and library clearance sales, and asking for donations from community members and students they collected a staggering 17,300 books.

Jayzee MacPhail is one of the co-presidents of the Newport Harbor chapter of Invisible Children, a San Diego-based organization that specializes in building and furnishing schools to educate child soldiers in Uganda.

Despite obvious economic disparities, the fact that the donations’ recipients are fellow teenagers helps her empathize.

“We’re the same age as these people. We’re helping potentially our peers,” MacPhail said.

Before being loaded into the industrial cargo truck, the boxes were the Randle family’s responsibility, and it was no small undertaking. Once the boxes filled the large garage, they started accumulating across the front porch.

“It was fine until they started covering the windows,” said Kate Randle, the primary student coordinator of the drive. “It was great to see the community get out there, so it was all worth it.”

When it rained, the family had to cover the boxes with tarps.

The Invisible Children club started up at Newport Harbor three years ago when several of the students saw a documentary about child soldiers in their international relations class. Keira Kirby, who taught the class, is one of the faculty advisors of the club.

“The students said, ‘Let’s do something about this,’ and we said, ‘If you want to have a club, we’ll have a club,’” Kirby said.

The book drive was ideal this year for the club, which raised about $66,000 in the past two years, because it didn’t require monetary donations.

“We really felt that we had tapped the community in terms of asking for money, so this time we just asked for books that they might not need or use anymore,” Kirby said.

After making a stop in the Midwest, the books will be flown to Africa and used to stock school bookshelves there.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].