Sarah Beth Costello
February 17, 2009
Photo by Sarah B. Costello
The mingled aromas of freshly ground coffee, a hint of mocha and a whiff of pastries infiltrated Barnes & Noble Tuesday evening at the Western Alamance High School Book Fair.
“We’re just trying to raise money for the high school’s media center,” said media specialist, Tim Johnson. “Barnes & Noble offers the space here where we can have dancers and the high school band come in, or the jazz club.”
A dozen girls decked out in cheerleading attire and glitter marched onto the “stage” and performed a couple of jazz numbers for the small, yet captivated audience.
The upbeat hip-hop could be heard throughout the entire store, but customers did not seem to mind the noise – most had come to support the school.
“Our library kind of has a shortage on books,” said one jazz ensemble member, “and anything that people buy during this time goes to our library.”
Western Alamance received 20 percent of the profit collected in the time frame from both Barnes & Noble and Starbucks. A wish list for the high
Western Alamance Jazz Ensemble Dance Team performs in front of Starbucks counter. Photo by Sarah B. Costello
school was exhibited on a table near the front door. Customers had the option of purchasing personal items, with a percentage of their purchases going towards the library, or actually buying wish-list books at the store and donating them.
Johnson decided a book fair was an ideal way to raise some money. “Some of the other media specialists at Alamance Burlington School System have done [a book fair] before and they recommended it to me,” said Johnson.
Johnson said the book fairs have been pretty successful for the other schools that had done them.
Johnson has high hopes the book fair will yield plenty of funds to update the media center’s book collection.
The Jazz Ensemble performs one of several dances:
Sarah Beth Costello 