May 1, 2006 Contact: Sue Baker
For Immediate Release 738-2000
City’s Department of Public Works to serve as collection site for nonprofit literacy agency
Mayor Scott Avedisian, Department of Public Works Director David Picozzi, and Jane Miller Webber, director of Hands Across the Water, will hold a brief press conference/photo opportunity tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. near the compost facility behind the Department of Public Works, 925 Sandy Lane, to announce the city as a collection site for used books for charity.
The non-profit agency, based in Massachusetts, was founded in 2000 to promote waste abatement and the humanitarian reuse of books. Since its inception, it has grown to include over sixty collection sites in the southern New England region. Because of program’s popularity with Rhode Islanders who use collection sites in towns bordering the Ocean State, the agency is expanding its reach into Rhode Island, with Warwick, Westerly, North Smithfield, and Warren slated as the first participating municipalities.
The agency collects unwanted books and sends them to community libraries and schools in needy communities in Mississippi and Appalachia (West Virginia and Kentucky), as well as Africa and the poorer countries of Asia and eastern Europe. Miller Webber noted that, “since many school systems in developing countries provide instruction in English, our books are an ideal fit in libraries and schools worldwide where they have been placed.”
“We are pleased to be partnering with Hands Across the Water,” Avedisian said. “This offers residents of our city a no-cost way to reduce the amount of waste we’re dumping at the landfill, and increasing our recycling abilities. It also affords our citizens an easy and convenient way to dispose of books they no longer want, with the knowledge that they are helping to support literacy efforts all over the globe.”
For more information about Hands Across the Water, log onto surplusbooksforcharity.org