Packing up and moving out

Royal Canadian Legion Branch 445 in Callander members Tony Gagliardi and Brent Coleman load up the books gathered Canadian Armed Forces Personnel currently serving overseas Monday.

With assistance from members of the Callander Legion the books gathered by Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota’s office for three months for Canadian Armed Forces Personnel currently serving overseas were packed up and shipped off to Montreal.

The book drive that started in the spring was closed several weeks early due to the overwhelming response of the community. Rota says he only expected 600 to a 1,000 books, but was blown away with the community response resulting in over 6,000 books being gathered.

“All parts of the riding were behind this and even outside the riding and it’s amazing,” states Rota.

“What we did was we arranged everything for the first week of September back in the middle of August thinking that that would give us time to get everything ready.”

Rota says everyone in the community offered to help from Bob Chisholm of McDonald’s providing hundreds of be my guest to a Big Mac business cards to act as book marks and treat the troops to a burger when they get home. To JEY’s a local shredding and Storage Company offering to transport the books to Montreal, but unfortunately the trucks couldn’t ship beyond Ontario, so the folks at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 445 in Callander stepped up and said they could help.

“All around everybody has been chipping in, the folks at the Callander Legion picked up some money and bought book lights so they can read and not have to worry about power,” he explains.

“Everyone has been so outstanding.”

Legion Members Tony Gagliardi and Brent Coleman big-heartedly offered to transport the books gathered through the office to Montreal. In turn the books will be shipped by sea to the troops in serving in the Middle East.

“It is nice to see it go to the service men and women in Afghanistan,” says Gagliardi.