"You've Delivered us a Library!"

5 weeks after the launch of the book drive three London Loveiosa members (Jessica, Rebecca and Natasza) packed up their car and headed off into London on the first delivery of books to those in need. 

We had 5 drops planned in total that day and over 400 books to squeeze into the little Fiat but with some strategic packing and a slightly dodgy Sat Nav we managed it. And it only took 8 hours to get to all our stops including a detour to the chapter meeting at Kings Cross Station!

We met some wonderful and inspiring people on the way and got to see first hand how our book drive project is helping and how we can help them more in the future.

We delivered 300 books to four St Mungo's projects scattered across London. The staff at each stop were incredibly grateful and we spent some time talking to one of them, Maurice, who asked us for more books and we discussed what else we could do to help improve the quality of life of the people in his care. We met one of the residents and realised how little they have in the form of entertainment there. He was so surprised at the delivery of books and we hope to work further with this project to provide them with other motivational resources.

We received this kind email from Maurice after delivering the books:

"Thank you so much to you and your colleagues for your kind and generous donation of books today, and for taking the trouble to deliver them to us. Many of our clients, whilst literate, prefer to watch TV than read books and my aim is to try and show them the pleasure and knowledge that can be gained form a good book. We will be delighted to accept more books, and posters if you have them, for our other projects in Islington."

We also delivered almost 200 books to Whistler's Walk, a children's home which is going to use the books to set up a library when they move to a new house in the new year. The residential support workers there have been incredibly supportive of our cause and very excited to present the books to the young people who live with them. 

To tie in with our postcard project, we wrote messages to the recipients, (some of which can be seen in the above photos) and included our favourite quotes about books. 

The final drop off of the night was to another St Mungo's project, where we donated 200 books. As we arrived a resident was leaving and kindly asked us if we would like some help, when we told him we were delivering books he said "Books ?! I'll get the staff!" It was fantastic to see first hand the excitement of the people we would be helping. The staff were overwhelmed by the amount of books and exclaimed "You've delivered us a Library!" - they asked us lots of questions about the books and were incredibly grateful. 

We'd like to offer out a huge thank you to everyone who donated books to our cause over the last month, we still have other 1000 to deliver and look forward to meeting more of the charities we will be helping. 

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