Winnipeg students collect over 1K books for Children's Hospital

Students at a Winnipeg elementary school delivered over 1,000 books to the Children's Hospital Book Market at St. Vital Centre Monday.

Grade 5 and 6 students from the leadership club of École Henri-Bergeron more than doubled their goal of collecting 450 books for the initiative. The books will be added to the approximately 10,000 books already donated to the St. Vital Centre Book Drive. 

The gently used books will be sold during the book market, which will run from April 21 to 27 at St. Vital Centre. Proceeds from the market will go toward purchasing equipment or running programs for patients at the Children's Hospital.

For the students of the leadership club there was a sense of pride to be volunteering and making a difference.

"We were really surprised when we went so far passed our goal and we were really proud," said Grade 6 student Elliot Kilbrei. "It means, like, a lot to us, to help kids around our age in the hospital, to volunteer and to do all this stuff."

The book drive will run until Feb. 28 and is hoping to reach its 40,000 book goal. 

"Having this many books could raise more than $500,000 this year for essential equipment at the Children's Hospital,” said Carol Irving, the coordinator for the Children's Hospital Book Market.

“Every book counts, so please fill a box with books and drop it off this week."

People can drop off gently used books into bins inside the shopping centre entrances during regular hours.