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st. liborius youth group honored for book drive for africa

Story by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

St. Liborius youth group was recognized for their service with a Compassion in Action award from the African Library Project, an international nonprofit organization headquartered in California.

Young people at St. Liborius were proud of the award, youth ministry coordinator, Mona Mense, said.
St. Liborius youth sent a special Christmas gift to one of their own.

The young people, along with a number of other groups including Albers, Breese, Freeburg, New Baden/Wesclin, St. Ann’s in Nashville and St. Agatha’s in New Athens helped with the project, Mense said.

Allison Schmale, a former member and sister of current members, asked her friends and family to collect books for the village where she works in Lesotho, Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer.
They didn’t have a library, and she needed help.

The enthusiasm of the youth and assistance from other communities brought more donations than expected, so their efforts made it possible to open libraries in five other communities as well.

Mense and Sandy Bergkoetter, book drive chairperson, traveled to California to accept the award from the African Library Project.

Project president, Chris Bradshaw, emphasized the work that could be accomplished by a small community with help from others.

According to Bradshaw, the young people “collected, sorted, packed and shipped over 6,000 books with money they raised.”

Not only did they send books to Lesotho, they also sent them to Botswana.

While St. Liborius youth may not host another book drive in the near future — they gave all the books away — the group continues to give of their time and talent to other people in need.

“It is a tradition (for our youth) to help someone or do some kind of service project at Christmas each year, so even if we’re not doing a book drive,” Mense said, we will be working on something.”