By Pat Kelly

The load of a half ton of math textbooks I was transporting made my SUV handle a lot differently. I was light in the front end and needed to allow more time for braking. On top of that, it was rush hour on the expressway and a rush job to get the books back to Crystal Lake, address the boxes and get them to the post office pronto.

Flashback to Zambia, June of this year.

When visiting the School of Hope, our friend and headmistress of the school Kathleen told us they needed math textbooks. To make it easier for us, there was a shipping container leaving Delaware in August which would bring a multitude of goods to the village and school. If we could locate and gather math books and send them to Delaware versus Zambia, that would be much kinder to A to Z Literacy’s checkbook.

Well, as luck would have it, we asked and Follett School Solutions delivered. Jean B., a friend of A to Z, knows a guy, who put us onto a gal, who through Follett was able to donate about a half ton of math textbooks.

Time was of the essence though, and within a couple days, the heavy boxes of books needed to be picked up from Woodridge, IL, labeled and shipped at the Crystal Lake Post Office. The container was leaving in a week and we gambled on shipping the goods media mail- a slower, more economical method. During a nail biting week, we waited for email confirmation the books had arrived on time. After urging our friends on the receiving end to check the post office and around the church premises (the location of the container), the books turned up at the eleventh hour! Whew!

Now they are en route to Zambia, waiting to deliver their knowledge to eager youngsters. Was it ever worth the hustle.