A Decade of Reading and Giving

By Ryan Percy

On the weekends of Sept. 8 and Sept. 15, volunteers and buyers attended the Annual Terry Fox Giant Used Book Sale at the St. Clair Shores Shopping Centre. All proceeds were donated to the Tecumseh Terry Fox Run.

Marian Drouillard, 61, the event organizer said the book sale was originally a way to raise money for the Windsor Terry Fox Run.

“My crazy thought was if I could get a thousand books donated I could sell them for a buck a piece and make a thousand dollars,” Drouillard said. “Well that’s not exactly how it turned out.”

The first year they received roughly 20,000 books from donations and in 2018 roughly 48,000 were donated. With the sale taking place at the old Dollarama at 25 Amy Croft Dr. the price of each book was set at a dollar each.

Phil Longpre, 37, and his family attended the event and left with armfuls of books after spending only $67. Longpre said he learned about the event online and was happy to support the cause.

“[The book sale is] awesome, well organized,” said Longpre. “We found a couple cases full of books for our classrooms, for our homes and for our kids.”

According to Drouillard, the goal was to raise $150,000 for the Terry Fox Foundation in the first decade.

The organizer of the Tecumseh Terry Fox Run, Jan Wright, 60, said she is proud of the support for the 22nd Tecumseh run.

“I hate setting goals. Because, if we don’t achieve those goals I don’t want it to feel like a loss,” said Wright. “At the end of the day it’s not just about how much money we raise, it’s about building a community and supporting each other.”

At the sale’s end volunteers raised around $25,000 beating their goal with a decade-long total of $155,000. This represented almost a quarter of funds raised in 2018 for the Tecumseh Terry Fox Run.

Unsold books will be donated to Diabetes Canada for Value Village locations in Windsor-Essex.