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School drive collects 1,900 books for Syrian refugees by Julia Le Oakville Beaver Staff 19 | Friday, May 13, 2016 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com Across the country, communities have been actively working to help ease the transition of Syrian refugees into life in Canada. The West Oak Public School community is no different. A committee of parents formed to explore ideas on how to best integrate Syrian refugee children through education. Committee member Duri Alajrami, said it was decided a book drive would make the most impact on the lives of Syrian refugee children. The group partnered with Facebook group Let Them Be Kids, which has a network of volunteers collecting toys and books for refugee families arriving in the Greater Toronto Area. With help from students in the school's Adopt a Village committee and some teachers, they launched the READ (Refugee Education Assistance Drive) drive in April. The school community was encouraged to collect books that range from a Kindergarten to Grade 5 reading level. Each donor was given a READ bookmark in return. READ stickers were also handed out for students who wanted to personalize their donation with a special message. "The original goal was (to collect) 1,000 books and we brought in almost 1,900 books in that time period, which was fabulous," said West Oak principal Sean McCarthy, noting the Members of the Adopt a Village committee at West Oaks Public School hold a few books and the giant book thermometer signifying the 1,893 books the school collected in their READ (Refugee Education Assistance Drive) that they delivered to Let Them Be Kids, an organization helping Syrian refugees. | photo by Graham Paine ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog or facebook.com/HaltonPhotog) drive ran April 4-15. He said it was amazing to see the parent and student communities work together to put on a presentation to the school for the kick off, then track the school's progress over the drive before the books were sorted by age group and sent to Let Them Be Kids. "Honestly, it's a great privilege to be the principal at West Oaks because there is such an involved staff and the students are really engaged in learning and engaged in the greater community," he said. "The parent community is highly involved as well. It was really neat to be able to see all those stakeholders come together for a common goal." Alajrami said it's been a rewarding experience. "I think, like all of us, we're inspired by the government efforts over the past few months," he said, noting the public has stepped up to help people fleeing from a "very unfortunate thing that's happening in the world." He added with two children at the school, ages seven and 11, he also wanted to expose them to a global issue and how they could get involved locally in a meaningful cause that most of the country is involved in. McCarthy said students were thrilled to collect books and write a special message inside for Syrian refugee children to read. "That was pretty exciting for students to have that opportunity to welcome people to Canada," he said. Efforts to help Syrian refugees won't end there either, McCarthy said. 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