'Many hands make the work light' is something the Rotary Club of Brandon #1344 see firsthand twice a year during their annual spring and fall book sale fundraisers.
Their most recent 3-day book sale took place in mid-September, bringing in over 100,000 pounds of books to sort, stack and sell, all to raise money for local projects across Brandon, and the Westman Region.
Rotary Club member, Marty Stanley says it was another fantastic book sale for the Club with many people purchasing new reads for their bookshelves.
"We couldn't have done it without all our volunteer support," shares Stanley. "Everybody who works at the book sale is a volunteer. And some people even took time off of work so they could work at the book sale."
Some businesses even went so far to offer employee help during the book sale after their business closed for the day. "Compass Credit Union did that and that was really, really nice of them to come and help in that fashion!"
The bi-annual book sales are held at Brandon's Victoria Inn, and Marty Stanley gives high accolades to the Vic Inn's staff who assist the group with whatever they need help with.
"And Canada Movers helped move all the books over too," says Stanley.
"We try to get the books to walk from the book palace to the Vic Inn, but they just won't walk," he jeers. "So, we have to get Canada Movers and Home Hardware, and they pitch in with their forklift to help us unload the books off the trailers, just to set them up."
"So, that's very, very much appreciated," he adds. "Without that support we wouldn't be able to do it because one pallet of books weighs close to 3,000 pounds and we had 35 pallets of books. That's a lot of books! There are basically 12 pallets of books in one trailer, and it took 3 trailers to bring them all over."
The Rotary Club of Brandon's next book sale will take place during the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair, the last week in March of 2025.
(photo credit Rotary Club of Brandon #1344 Facebook page)