Grade 11 Student Collects Hundreds of Books for Flooded School in Belgium

In the summer of 2021, parts of Belgium were hit with historic flooding. One school south of Liège lost their entire collection of library books because it was flooded. Since then, an Antwerp International School student has made it her mission to collect books for the school so the students could continue learning.

Amelia is in Grade 11 at AIS. When she heard about the school’s need for books, she made it part of her Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) project. “I worked with the English immersion school in Aywaille, Belgium. They were in need of all types of books, but mostly books in English,” Amelia said. 

As an American living in Belgium, Amelia says she knew this was the perfect project for her. After sending out emails and putting out notices on social media, Amelia collected 421 books to donate to the school. “It was a lot of books and for about 6 months, our entire laundry room was covered in books. We had boxes of Percy Jackson books, we had Dr Seuss in the corner, we had picture books on our washing machine and the entire counter was just covered in books,” Amelia remembers.

She says the books came from the United States, Belgium, England, Germany, Chile, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and France since August of 2021. “I just kept getting boxes and boxes and boxes of books,” Amelia proudly exclaimed.

The book drive started in July of 2021 when a teacher at the school sent out a Facebook post explaining how floods devastated the school. The building was insured but not the contents of the classrooms or the library.  

The school specifically needed to replace English books. Amelia made a flyer which was mailed and sent to family, friends, Belgian schools, Facebook, the American clubs here in Belgium and companies back in the United States. 

“I’ve always been interested in reading. For as long as I can remember, I’ve just loved books. It just seemed sad to me that these kids had lost their library, that they didn’t have access to books. Since I’ve always had this passion for literacy, I decided I would collect some books for them,” Amelia said.

After hearing they lost all of their books, Amelia thought this would be a really good CAS project. “Having access to books is something so important to kids,” Amelia explains. “I find with CAS, it’s a really nice opportunity to get stuff done.”

For the Creativity strand of CAS, Amelia’s been having a lot of fun. She’s made mushroom soup with fungi she foraged outside. She’s also been teaching herself cross stitch. She’s also learned to crochet and has crocheted a scrunchy. 

For the Activity strand of CAS, she took part in a breast cancer walk in the fall. Now, she’s waiting for the weather to warm up before she teaches herself roller skating tricks.

As for Service, she has been tutoring an 11-year-old student in English and she held that successful book drive. She’s now working on getting supplies to Ukrainian refugees. “I feel really connected to that because my Great Grandmother actually was a Ukrainian refugee back in the early 1900s and she came to the United States. I feel like that’s another really good, meaningful cause. It just has a really good personal connection for me because if people hadn’t reached out to my Great Grandma, I might not be here,” Amelia explains. “We need to help people. You’re going to have some impact on their life that you might not recognize now, but it’s going to impact people’s lives for goodness knows how long.”   

ABOUT AIS

Antwerp International School is located in the leafy suburbs of North Antwerp. We offer a holistic learning approach, developing the many talents of our students in a multicultural environment. Together, we can lift your child’s experience to new heights. Benefit from the unique chance to join our international family through the AIS Seeks Talent Scholarship. Learn more by following this link.