That's a Lot of Braille Books

Weigh it. Unpack it. Repack it. Weigh it. Stamp it. Carry it. Stack it. Repeat.

Over two dozen volunteers crowded the Northcoast Allied Moving and Storage warehouse near Factoria on July 5 to play an instrumental role in preparing Braille and large-print books to be shipped to the blind and visually impaired in Nepal.

The boxes of books to be shipped overseas, due to the usual over-complications of US customs, mustn’t weigh more than 15 pounds apiece. Many of the boxes received by TRIFC weighed much more, and thus resulted the instant creation of many assembly-line jobs that volunteers took up in stride.

To the outside observer, all was chaos. To the participating volunteer, it was still mostly chaos. That was fine for me, since it turned out that I was mainly responsible for delivering the pizza lunch in a timely manner.

But still, the assembly line worked, and it worked better than anyone had anticipated.

The goal going into the day was to pack up 500 boxes of books that weighed less than the 15-pound requirement. In just a few short hours, that goal was met, and then some.

The books were saved from recycling by Cindy Holm, teacher of blind and visually-impaired individuals and they were shipped to and stored at the facility courtesy of the Washington State Braille Resource Center and Stuart Morrow from Northcoast Moving & Storage. Because of their efforts, schools for the blind and visually-impaired throughout Nepal will be able to give these books new life through the imaginations of children in need. And the children need Braille books!

Cindy Holm

Heck, even just blank Braille paper can be hard to come by.

So, a warm thank you and Namaste to everyone who helped out on the holiday weekend!

And to all the other readers out there, there are still many boxes to go! Keep your eyes on your e-mail, we’ll be having another volunteer packing party soon, and we could always use some extra help.

-Carey

Click to see more photos:

Braille Books - Edited