The Shepherdstown Community Club’s Legendary Book Sale, which concluded on October 15, continued to live up to and exceed expectations, raising over $19,000 to help maintain the War Memorial Building in town and Morgan’s Grove Park. The results are again revalidation of the impact of dedicated volunteers and the merits of commitment on the part of the Shepherdstown community to caring for these historically significant properties.

In the year-long effort leading up to this annual sale, an estimated 50,000 books were received from over a hundred donors. The contributions ranged in size from a small handful of books to entire family libraries. In one exceptional case, a donation involved several thousand unique and valuable books and documents on military and political history. These important contributions were added to the significant number of books that were retained in storage from last year’s sale.

Tight scheduling of the War Memorial Building, which allowed only a minimum of set-up time for the sale, was resolved by the efforts of over 100 enthusiastic young Jefferson High School Air Force ROTC members, who made quick work of bringing books stored at the Quonset Hut at Morgan’s Grove Park and carrying the heavy boxes up the back stairs to the second floor of the War Memorial Building. They were augmented even further, by the impressive energy the Shepherd University girls basketball team. It took the efforts of seven pickup owners shuttling loads from the park to stay ahead of them. Other dedicated volunteers faithfully showed up each day for almost three weeks to sort and organize books in different categories on both floors of the building, to conduct the sale and to put everything away when the sale was finished. One very thoughtful participant even made a three-week supply of cookies to provided refreshments for the volunteers!

All that we can do is give a big thanks to each person who made a contribution to the overall effort. Despite all that is going wrong in America at the moment, volunteerism and community spirit are still alive and kicking! On top of all of that, we didn’t just raise critical funds for the Shepherdstown Community Club — we preserved and found new homes for thousands of books.

And further still, the beat goes on. We are already receiving valuable new contributions of books and the nearby Sandpiper Storage Company on Route 45 has donated a unit to help store them for next year’s sale! Our team has held a soul-searching “hot washup,” critically examining this year’s efforts, and we are now rolling up our sleeves to go at it again. In the process, we sincerely welcome comments or suggestions from members of our community to make it even better next year.

Mike Austin, of Shepherdstown