More than 1,200 Books Donated for South African School

For Sharon Milligan, former faculty member and director of health and physical education, retirement hasn’t meant resting on her laurels.

She joined the Peace Corps in 2013 and is serving a two-year assignment in South Africa where she is teaching English to fifth-graders in a public, Christian school located in the northeast province of Limpopo. Matsepe Primary School, which serves 525 students in kindergarten through seventh grade, is only two years old, and its library has few books. Milligan has made it her mission to stock the library. Her friends and people connected with the Mazza Museum and the Dulcimer Gatherin’ have rallied to donate more than 1,200 books to ship to South Africa.
Kerry Teeple, administrative assistant for the Mazza Museum, has helped coordinate the collection. “I just can’t tell you how exciting it has been to be a witness to the generosity that these picture book lovers have shown in wanting to spread literacy to a world far removed from their own,” Teeple said.
Nondace Campbell, retired director of the reading center, and Vicki Stuckert (’94) spearheaded the book collection and prepared the books to be mailed to New Orleans. Milligan is working with the Nelson Mandela Library Books Project, which will ship the books on a container freighter from New Orleans to South Africa. She is home on furlough for two weeks,and will continue her Peace Corps assignment until Sept. 6, 2015.

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