Books donated by the Dayhoff family are among donations to establish 35 libraries that arrived all at once in Botswana. Photo courtesy of Adam Dayhoff
As parents of three homeschool children, North Springfield residents Adam and Jerritt Dayhoff go through a lot of books. They were reminded just how many books, as well as how many they weren’t using, when the family moved to the area in September 2012.
They were also trying to brainstorm a way for their children to become involved with some kind of global service project, “providing for other people, looking outside the United States and connecting with places,” said Adam.
One of Jerritt’s friends from an online community suggested they could use their surplus of young reader books to create libraries through the African Library Project, a volunteer organization that helps coordinate both the shipping of books and library setup in various locations in Africa.
“This fit on both levels,” Adam said. For each library to get off the ground, they needed to donate around 1,000 books.
The Dayhoff family was able to single-handedly donate all the books for the first library in the end of 2013. For subsequent donations, the Dayhoffs reached out to friends and Adam emailed his office at HNTB, where he’s a project manager working on the 95-395 Hot Lanes.
“Books started appearing in my cube -- the office funded about half of the library,” he said. “It was a tremendous response.”
With help from friends and Adam’s coworkers, the Dayhoff’s were able to donate enough books in 2014 to open three libraries.
“It’s very fulfilling,” Adam said. “We have texts and emails from the African Library Project that these are very well received, that they have a hard time keeping those 1,000 books in stock because they’re out, being read.”
For more information, visit www.africanlibraryproject.org.