We made new friends with at the shipyard/marina. Hands Across the Sea, a 46-ft dolphin catamaran and her crew, TL and Harriet, are docking for the summer in Fairhaven. TL and Harriet are not your typical live aboards. From the time that they sold their house and moved onto their boat sometime in 2007, they decided that they wanted to establish a charity to help build school libraries in the Caribbean Islands. Check them out at http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/. They were chosen Top-Rated non-profit for 2012. I was flabbergasted to learn that many kids in the Caribbean had no books at home and that most primary and secondary schools have very few appropriate reading books and no library. For an avid reader household like ours, the thought of growing with no books was devastating. We needed to help in some fashion.

On Monday, Aug 13th, we volunteered several hours to help pack books and other goodies and get them ready for shipment to the Caribbean islands. It was very rewarding task and we all enjoyed it, but we wanted to do more and keep involved, maybe even visiting one of the schools when we are in the Caribbean in two years time. From the Hand's Wish Lists, we chose to support the request for books from Clare Hall Secondary School in Antigua. We also would like to extend an invitation to all our friends and family to contribute to Clare Hall School's wish list (http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/HandsWishLists.htm .) Hopefully we'll even be able to visit them when we are in Antigua in a couple of years time.