Book after book, the Interpersonal Skills class packed boxes full of books — 114 boxes full of books to be exact. The books were collected by members of the community, ranging from elementary schools, to middle schools, to Manhattan High, to the congregation of the First United Methodist Church.

These books were collected to benefit libraries of South Carolina that lost books due to the flooding earlier this year.

“Somebody in the class saw something on Facebook that somebody had posted because of all the flooding that happened in South Carolina that the libraries had lost collections of books,” Kim Schnee, special needs teacher, said. “Not only the public libraries, but also the school libraries; a lot of them were underwater.”

With certain books in mind, the libraries sent out word for help collecting them.

“The libraries especially were wanting children’s books or young adult books more so than anything, but they would take anything at all,” Schnee said.

Once the IPS class set this as their service project for the year, they started the book drive as soon as possible.

“Originally we had, [senior] Suzanna Gevok and I, had some other students helping us saying, ‘we’ll do this, and this, and this’ and then it just kind of never really panned out,” senior Claire Kringen said. “The student who made the flyers, actually make those. Then, we ran off copies and put them up here and at east campus. [Gevock] and I took the donation bins to the elementary schools, and the middle schools. When we were finally ready to pick up books, again, [Barb] Crooks and [Kim] Schnee sent groups of kids to go get them. So it wouldn’t just be [Gevock] and I.”

Many students in the IPS class took leadership within the project itself. Kringen and Gevock took on the project, coordinating it within the school, and those within the surrounding schools.

“We sent out an email to all the principals at the elementary schools and middle schools, and they replied or didn’t reply,” Kringen said. “Some of the principals replied with a ‘no,’ because they had a food drive at the same time, so it would be conflicting. Northview, actually, their principal sent the email to the librarian. She got their leadership kids involved; they made more posters they took it on as their own project.”

Once the project started everyone began donating books, including the members of the FUMC.

“I spoke to my congregation to what we are trying to fix and how we could help, they responded really well,” senior Mackenzie Gwinner said. “Overall, I think the church donated 2,000.”

FUMC collected about 2,000 books, in total. The IPS class ended up with 114 boxes of books, totaling 3,713 pounds, all stacking up on three palettes. With help from Carpet 1, the class was able to shrink wrap and ship the palettes to Wichita. From there they will be sent to the South Carolina State Library.