HILLSPEAKING
from The Anglican Digest 

EASTER A.D. 2006

A SUB-TITLE for this Hillspeaking might well be: Books, Books and More Books.  As of this writing and according to Martha, our computer-for-all-purposes, there are 20,394 books on Operation Pass Along’s shelves (that number can, and probably will, go up or down tomorrow), and there are 14,779 titles in the Howard Lane Foland Library (that number could well go up tomorrow).  Not included in those numbers are extra copies of selections of the Anglican Book Club.

These Twin Barns, two stories high on one side and four on the other are crammed full of books.  Charles Robbins, our maintenance supervisor, has been kept busy, along with his many other chores, building book shelves -- but he is fast running out of places to put them.

Statistics do not tell the whole story, of course, but every now and again it’s good to look at them to show you where you’ve been.  Operation Pass Along began in 1972, the Foland Library in 1980.  When Pass Along started there were a thousand or so books on its shelves and records were kept on 3x5 cards -- one for each book.  If we used that method today we wouldn’t have room for the cards, much less the books themselves.  When we started the Library, based primarily on Father Foland's personal collection, I thought we might, just might, reach 10,000.  Incidentally, all of the books in the Library, including some very old and very valuable ones, have been donated.
 
Insofar as the domestic side of Pass Along goes, in the 21st century, we have received books or other items from every state in the union except South Dakota and Utah, and interestingly enough we have sent books to every state except South Dakota and Utah.  The top donors are Texas, Florida and Arkansas, in that order; the states where we have sent items to the highest number of people are Florida, Texas and Arkansas in that order.  Operation Pass Along is totally colorblind when it comes to red states, blue states.
 
Pass Along is self-sustaining in that, although there is no charge for the item per se, it does request that postage and handling charges be paid by the recipient -- except in Third World countries.  Recipients, and others, have been generous enough that Pass Along has been able to send books and other items postpaid to Third World countries, prisons, and seamen's missions.
 
Since computerized records have been kept, and as of this writing, 16,000+ books have been sent to Third World countries, more than 1800 to prisons, and 4500 to seamen's missions.  For 2005, the last year in which annual records are complete, both Ghana and Malawi in Africa each received more than a thousand books.
 
At the turn of the century, Pass Along began sending vestments and clericals to Third World countries.  The items have varied from a bishop’s crosier to clerical shirts to stoles in all of the liturgical colors.  Again, as of this writing, more than 3800 such items have been sent and, again, the two countries receiving the most are Ghana and Malawi.  No attempt has ever been made to prioritize who is sent what but shipments are made in the order which requests are received.  One exception to that has been the sending of vestments to replace those destroyed by Katrina or Rita.

Statistics are just that -- statistics.  The real heart and soul of Operation Pass Along lies in the file of letters received over the years from, literally, all over the world.  They are what flesh out the bare bones of statistics. 


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