Bats and Books for Bulgaria: On-going project

Bats and Books for Bulgaria

We are Peace Corps Volunteers, stationed in Razgrad, Bulgaria. Razgrad is a town of 30,000 people. We are both English teachers at local schools, volunteers at the town’s orphanage, and facilitate a weekly English club for community members. All of our students are very excited about learning English and about American culture. We feel that one of the best ways to keep them interested and learning more is to give them the resources to keep learning after we leave.

Our town has a very limited supply of English books. We are first requesting used books and magazines. We work with babies to adults, so any type of book would be used. The adults that we are working with read at a 9^th/10^th grade level.

We have discovered that there is a strong desire to learn about baseball. We think that baseball is a great game to teach teamwork, cooperation, and American culture. We currently have no baseball/softball equipment. We are asking for anything; gloves, bats, balls, bases, safety equipment and bags.

You can send books using Economy M-bags. M-bags can be used only for books, magazines, and sheet music. US postal offices will place the books in a bag for shipping at a reduced cost. You will need to send a minimum of 11lbs to use this method of shipping. You can send a maximum of 66lbs. It cost $11.55 for the first 11lbs and $1.05 for each additional pound or fraction of a pound.

We are asking our friends and family visiting us to bring over the donated baseball/softball equipment, as shipping and customs fees would be very expensive. John’s parents and my mom, Carol Holdren, are planning on visiting us this summer. My sister, Sara Gallaugher, will be coming over at the end of March.