Less than a month before students came back to school, St. Leo the Great School in Fairfax had a unique problem: too many books.
The school held a “Run 4 Education” fundraiser this spring and spent the proceeds on a much-needed new reading curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade. Then the school needed to find a home for its 200 old textbooks.
Dorothea Ku-DiPietro, assistant to the principal, said she made 24 calls to various public schools and used bookstores, but no one would take the textbooks. She made a 25th phone call on a whim to St. Joseph School in Martinsburg, W.Va. Ku-DiPietro immediately connected with the principal.
“Maria Byrd was tearful, saying that they had just prayed the day before for some way to procure greatly needed resources,” Ku-DiPietro said. The Holy Spirit really did all the work, she said.
Despite soaring temperatures and humidity July 28, little could stop the 15 teens, kids and adults who arrived at 8:30 a.m. to load a moving van with textbooks. Father Juan A. Puigbó, pastor of St. Leo Church, began the service project with a prayer.
Ku-DiPietro; Cindi Harkes, principal; and Father Thomas T. Nguyen, parochial vicar, led the volunteers to form an assembly line. Teens and several of Ku-DiPietro’s children lined up to carry the textbooks from the school to the moving van. They handed the books to adult volunteers who organized the textbooks in boxes by grade.
In a little over an hour, the volunteers had filled the van with textbooks.
“We’re giving books to other schools, (and) they’re in need, so we’re helping them,” said Anderson Kurtz, a student at St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly. He added that through service, he enjoys “helping the community.”
Ku-DiPietro described herself and the St. Leo School staff as “just a conduit.”
“There’s nothing more to it,” she added while taping a box shut.
