The Principal of Ron Brent Elementary is the latest person to show his disgust following yesterday’s (Mon) outdoor book exchange fire.
Dan Watt was in Kelowna when he first heard of the blaze on Twitter and says the book exchange was supposed to play a massive role in their literacy efforts.
“We had a grant in conjunction with the Prince George Public Library and we had a fellow build the box for us and is a relatively new install for us, it’s just been there about a month and last year we spent a great deal of our energy on our reading goals and that was kind of a capstone for us.”
In addition, the school had two indoor book boxes, which had a hard time staying full.
“We could hardly keep them full, we had donations from the public library and private individuals and our book boxes were a going concern in the front foyer of our school and so having that little free library out front of the school was a next step for us.”
The outdoor book exchange was seen as a way to get more people reading.
He says it’s too early to tell if the book exchange will be rebuilt or refunded.
“I think it’s early days for us to decide if we want to take that on again, for sure we will continue with our indoor book boxes in the front of our school, of course, those have a little bit of a different focus because the books are mainly targeted towards the kids and those reading levels but we really like the idea of having a community book box.”
The Prince George RCMP responded to the fire just after 3 AM on Monday morning and are investigating the incident.
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