Annual event to be a bookworm’s delight

THOUSANDS of books are in the process of getting sorted and stacked in preparation for the Rotary Geelong West Book Fair next week.

Starting on August 1 at the Geelong West Town Hall, the event will be a haven for bibliophiles, with bargains to be found at just $2 a book.

Rotary Geelong West Treasure David Dadds said the annual event had been running over the past 20 years, with tens of thousands of books donated to the cause.

“I would say we’d have about 100,000 [books] ready to go, however we probably would bring in half that amount and we probably sell 40,000 books.

“All our books are donated, we’ve got to thank Geelong Library because we get all their withdrawals, so they’re donated to us.”

All funds raised from the event go back towards the Geelong community, including to Geelong Hospital Patient Transport, who Rotary have committed to donating to again this year.

“It’s a terrific value of money exercise, we also support the Geelong Youth Exchange, where we send a teenager on the Kokoda Track,” Mr Dadds said.

“There’s a lot of local communities that’ll benefit from it; we actually also did the Geelong Animal Welfare Centre and Hope bereavement last year.

“People have come to know it, they get their year’s supply or six months supply of books.

“It’s a terrific value for the book lovers and I think the people that support our book fair tend to know when and where it happens and plan for it.

“It’s also a bit of a treasure hunt and I think people love that, our books are sorted very roughly; basically into fiction and non-fiction.”

The Rotary Club works on the Book Fair for six months of the year, sorting the books into their categories and enjoy watching as the community fill the town hall.

Mr Dadds said the event was a unifying feature of the Rotary Club, giving members a purpose to head along to meetings and volunteering their time.

The Book Fair will run on Friday, August 1 from 9am until 6pm, August 2 from 9am until 5pm, and August 3 from 9am until 2pm.

The club has thousands of books ready to go, donating all of the money raised to groups around Geelong.