Bullis School Collects About 1,400 Books for Casa De Maryland

Students, parents and staff from spent Martin Luther King, Jr. Day helping provide books to an organization that offers support to local immigrant families.

Bullis School students collected about 1,400 books last week to donate to Casa de Maryland – an organization that provides legal, financial, educational, employment and other critical support to more than 20,000 immigrants each year. On Monday, about 35 volunteers from the school packaged the books and delivered them to Casa de Maryland’s headquarters in Langley Park, Md.

“Not everyone in area has access to libraries,” said Sara Romeyn, the project coordinator and history teacher at Bullis School. “We wanted to collect books so that kids who come to the center with their mom or dad can go into the center’s library and use books and even check them out if they want.”

Almost a year ago, Casa de Maryland moved into a historic mansion in Langley Park that they restored to meet their needs. Even with the new facility, the building had an empty library and little funding to stock it.

Romeyn, who is the Chair of the Upper School’s social studies department, said she was looking for ways to give back to Casa de Maryland following the organization’s help with one of her units at Bullis School. The Executive Assistant at Casa de Maryland, Mauricio Lopez came in to her 11th grade United States history class to talk about immigration and some of the current tension with immigration.

“Mauricio Lopez from Casa de Maryland came over and spoke to the junior class about some of the legislation such as the and other legal issues and documentation for immigrants,” Romeyn said, “It was real eye opener for students and that established a personal relationship with the organization.”

When Romeyn toured Casa de Maryland over the school’s winter break, she noticed the empty library and saw an outlet to give back, she said.

“They have this weird little library with built in bookshelves and it’s empty,” she said. “Our idea was to collect about 500 good, decent children’s books.”

The school greatly exceeded that goal, collecting 1,400 in the first week of the collection. The school is still collecting gently used and new books in English and Spanish books the week of Jan. 17.

On Monday, students packed up the books at Bullis School and took them to Casa de Maryland where they labeled them to indicate reading level and stacked them on the shelves. Also, volunteers toured Casa de Maryland and learned about the center.

Lopez said the donations mean a lot to the organization.

"We have a lot of kids from low income immigrant families come in who don’t have much access to extracurricular acitivites and these books will provide a good resource," Lopez said. "We're very thankful for the donations and we will be handing them out to kids who are brought in for consultations."

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a day rooted in community service; however, Bullis students often look for opportunities to give back to the community, said Communications director at Bullis, Susie Zimmermann.

“We have a strong tradition in community service and certainly Martin Luther King Day is an important community service opportunity,” Zimmermann said.