Two Lander University English majors have teamed with their classmates and other students to collect books that will be sent to armed forces personnel through a volunteer organization called " Books for Vets."
Seniors Paula Birch Billingsley of Fairfax and Lindsey Copeland of Greenville persuaded members of Lander's English Club to take on the book collection as a club project. Billingsley is president of the club and Copeland vice president.
Not only did their classmates respond but students elsewhere on campus and faculty members also donated books, and the total collected so far stands at more than 100 hardcover and paperback books.
Billingsley's husband of six months, Sgt. James Billingsley, is a member of the S.C. Army National Guard's 151st Signal Battalion in Greenville, which, she said, is currently deployed in Kuwait.
She said the book drive was a personal endeavor prompted by her husband's military service and as a tribute to two National Guard veterans in their English class who have served in the Iraq-Afghanistan theatre.
Lillian Craton, assistant professor of English and adviser to the English Club, said the book drive was an offshoot of the university's Constitution Day observance in September. The students expect more books to be donated before they ship what they have collected to Books for Vets at the beginning of the spring semester, in January.
Books for Vets was founded by Wendy Shiner of Winter Springs, Fla., who sends donated books to troops overseas and to those who are in veteran's hospitals and other facilities. In the two years since she started the project, her group has shipped more than 50,000 volumes to servicemen and women and veterans.