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The celebrated campus service organization sorted hundreds of books to help further literacy in Cleveland.
Baldwin Wallace University's award-winning Circle K International (CKI) service organization has teamed up with the Cleveland Kids' Book Bank to sort and organize books.
The Book Bank is a nonprofit that works to get books into the hands of children in the Cleveland area. Since 2016, they have distributed more than 45,000 books a month and 4.6 million in total.
It's just one of the worthy community causes that BW's Circle K chapter has supported en route to earning statewide District Convention (DCON) recognition for their work.
In the past year, the BW CKI club has completed 758 service hours and raised more than $900 for various causes like Brick x Brick and relief for L.A. wildfire victims.
Recently, they won the Single Service Award for their previous work with the Book Bank. The award is given to the most outstanding CKI service project in Ohio.
BW Circle K member Ella Powell said, "I always love volunteering at the Book Bank because I get to help my community and also take a walk down memory lane seeing books I used to read as a kid."
A total of 15 club members spent their morning at the Book Bank helping sort hundreds of books into different categories such as picture, young adult, foreign language, chapter books and more. The categorization is important to the Book Bank's process of organizing and distributing books. While club members were there, more than 400 books were sorted and categorized.
Claire Fischer, president of BW's CKI chapter, said, "I hope going to the Cleveland Book Bank will become a new BW Circle K tradition. Working together to help serve the schools that a lot of our campus and club grew up in is such a rewarding way to give back to our community."
Steffi Burdick, vice president of BW's CKI chapter, said, "This was my third time going to the Cleveland Book Bank, and I have always had a positive experience there. There is something in knowing that the books I'm sorting through are going to make a child smile that feels so special and rewarding."
The Book Bank also has little free libraries around the Cleveland area where community members can donate or take books. Recently, BW CKI partnered with Book Jackets to build a little free library on the BW campus. If students want to donate or take a book, it is located outside of Marting Hall.
