HCC book sale benefits Intensive English Scholarship Fund
Feb 19, 2016
The Houston Community College (HCC) Intensive English Program (IEP) is turning old books into new cash for students. The group has been collecting used books over the past several months to help raise money for the IEP Scholarship Fund.
“Books contain tons of knowledge, they are not useless,” HCC Nursing student Michael Wang said. “I’m excited to get such a great deal, recycle and help others out in the process.”
With book prices ranging from 50 cents to a dollar, booklovers were in a frenzy to find that special treasure, digging through the stacks of fiction, nonfiction, romance, art, travel, education, self-help and mystery selections on top of the tables and in boxes.
This book repurposing event originally started 12 years ago on the HCC Gulfton Campus to help support the library at Gulfton. Faculty members gave their time and donated books to the sale throughout the years to help build up the Gulfton library. In 2007, now retired Intensive English Instructor Grace Bishop lead the charge on a scholarship fund and it gained support by faculty, staff and friends of the program. This year, the book sale donations were rolled into Bishop’s scholarship fund to help benefit the Southwest Intensive English Program students.
“Students who are eligible to apply for the scholarship have to be enrolled in or have completed the Intensive English Program courses at Southwest College, maintain a GPA of 2.5 or higher and must attend class regularly,” ESL/Intensive English Instructor and IEP Book Sale Co-Organizer Melissa Villamil said. “It is also open to F-1 Visa students, so that makes it different from many of the scholarships available to HCC students.”
This year’s book sale netted donations of around $580 for the IEP Scholarship Fund.
“One year they made $1,000, but it is usually around $400-600. I'm very pleased with the results,” Villamil said.
Students selected as a scholarship recipients can receive up to $250 per semester to support their studies. To view the book sale in action, check out our photo album on Flickr.