Thanks to the hard work and dedication of FIRST teams throughout the Eastern region, Success Won’t Wait’s Miracle of Reading Education (MORE) Used Book Drive netted over 3,300 lbs. of books this weekend!

The event, which is sponsored by First State Robotics and Salem County Robotics, is traditionally the largest book drive of the season for Success Won’t Wait.

The Duel on the Delaware event showcases the engineering abilities of approximately 350 high school students from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia in an annual robotics competition. And, in addition to building working robots, over 30 teams collected books for the seventh annual community service competition.

The teams worked incredibly hard to collect high quality books that will be redistributed by Success Won’t Wait in a variety of community outreach programs throughout the country.

The book drive results are as follows:

Book Drive Winner – Team #1218, Vulcan Robotics of Philadelphia, PA

Book Drive Runner-Up — Team @3151, Cyberstorm of Sewell, NJ

The addition of a community service element to the day’s events was the brainchild of Duel on the Delaware event organizer and Miracle Workerz team mentor John Larock. The Miracle Workerz team wanted to develop a donation event which was competitive and also connected with their other literacy programs.  Teams attending the robotics competition were asked to donate books with the team donating the most weight in books winning the challenge.

Although the books have not yet been completely counted, a preliminary estimate based on random sampling indicates that 8,000 to 12,000 books were collected at the event.

Books collected at the event include everything from pre-K board books, to children’s pictures books, to novels for junior and senior high school aged children, to popular adult fiction from best-selling authors like Grisham, Patterson, or Grafton.

A huge thank you goes to John Larock for coordinating the many Event Staff volunteers who made the day so successful!

Founded in 2002, Success Won’t Wait, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit literacy organization based in Wilmington, Delaware. Want to learn more about Success Won’t Wait’s literacy projects, how to donate used  books, or volunteer your time? Simply visit About Success Won’t Wait.

Read now, because success won’t wait!