Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saint John's August store set up (Image: Elizabeth MacLeod)
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saint John wrapped up its 15th annual BIG book sale last week to positive results.
“In the current conditions and state of the economy and the COVID, we did exceptionally well,” said Laurie Collins, Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saint John, who shared they raised $17,000 this year.
Typically, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saint John raise an average of $20,000 a year, the majority of which goes toward matching youths with trained volunteer mentors. Staff salaries and additional camps and programs are supported by the fundraiser.
“The staff salaries is a big piece of that because they do all the screening, all the training, all the supervision of the matches to make sure people are safe and that’s a high part of what we do,” she said.
The book sale was located on Level 1 of Brunswick Square at the former home of Lil’ Shop of Science. This year’s book sale became a month-long fundraiser from August 4-to-28, instead of its usual week-long fundraiser. Big Brothers Big Sisters Saint John is discussing about whether to continue renting out a space to hold the book sale in the future.
“I guess it’s really up to the mall, Brunswick Square. They kind of have the authority to tell us to go which way or that so I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one,” Collins said. “But definitely pros and cons to both ways of running things and people were so cooperative and so excited to see that the book sale was on.”
Sales were steady throughout the entire month of August, with spurts of busy times. Collins says fiction, non-fiction, romance, Canadian and local genres and children’s books were all popular sellers.
Collins felt that overall people cooperated with the social distancing measures. “We wanted to keep everyone safe, so that was our top priority,” she said.
