Josh Pagan

Day of Service

On September 6th I did the Richard Stockton College’s 11th annual day of service. I decided to do the project called Books Without Borders. I looked at some other projects such as Water Watch but decided on Books Without Borders because I enjoy books and there was plenty of seats for my friends to also join me. In this project our job was to move boxes of books out of cars and storage to begin sorting them into their respective subjects. These books ranged widely from college textbooks to novels to children’s books. After sorting them all they would be put back into boxes and shipped to other countries to people who needed them hence the name Books Without Borders. I took it upon myself to sort out all of the science books because I am a biology major and science is my favorite subject. It was very relaxing organizing all of the books and knowing it was for a good cause. At one point I also helped clean up all of the trash that was accumulated from many empty boxes that all of the books came in.

Doing this project gave me a new outlook on books. I always looked at them as an annoyance to be forced to read them for school, but some people don’t even have them and they are actually a huge privilege. Everyone learns from these books and for people who don’t have the privilege of attending a college like Stockton, those books are their only source of knowledge and a greater education. Knowing that attending and helping with this project helped me give this privilege to other individuals made me feel great. I know that I will most likely never meet the people that will receive these books but it is enough knowing that they will be able to get so much knowledge out of them. I would enjoy doing this project again at the next day of service because I know exactly what it is about and I support what the project is about one hundred percent.