“It was crazy. It was amazing!”

That’s how Moni Loewen described the ROC Eastman Fall Bookfair that took place last week Thursday, Friday and Saturday at their new location.

Loewen says, “it was completely crazy. From all the help we had, to setting it up at SWIFT in some their unused office space.” Which, according to Loewen is a miracle in itself as she describes how they came to move into their building.

The buildings unused reception area was turned into a booknook during the ROC bookfair

“One of the owners of Swift, Chris stumbled upon us as we were moving our books out of the mall a while back and he said “what's going on?” Turns out his mother is also a long-time volunteer with the book fairs so it feels like family sometimes and he said, “Well, hang on. Do you guys need space?” We said, “Yeah.” And more conversations happened and they have offered us space in their building to store the many boxes of books.”

Loewen continues, “Then they said, ‘Do you need to do a book fair too? We still have offices that aren't being used.’ I said ‘yes please. So they said ‘Go ahead and pack it with books.‘ Once we were done, it reminded of us of an old bookstore with little rooms. That was the coolest thing ever.”

There was still a nagging question in Loewen and the ROC staff's mind. Now that the Fall Bookfair had moved, would the public follow them? Would anyone still show interest and support ROC through this bookfair?

Loewen says, they were very overwhelmed by the public's support. “We were shocked. We had lineups. We were at capacity pretty much the entire three days. It was insane. We had way more people than we expected. We stared out the window and said, ‘What? Do you mean there's people outside? That's crazy. It's amazing.”

She says, many of the shoppers who came last week, had been coming to bookfairs during the Bethesda Auxiliary book fair days, long before ROC took it over and so this was a tradition for them and were relieved that the bookfair was back.

Loewen says seeing those familiar faces, “it’s always the most fun part. They were so excited to stock up their home libraries for obviously very low cost. We carried boxes and boxes and boxes of books out to people cars.”

She says that most books were priced at $1 and $2 which had some people saying, “What do you mean? They told us "We feel guilty these books are too low. We need to give you more money." So they did, they just donated more, right there.”

ROC Eastman staff giving away free sports equipment during a community delivery dayWhen asked how much money was taken in, Loewen said, “get this, we sold almost $8000 of books, in three days! It's insane with the books priced at $1 and $2, the math is kind of crazy on how many books went out the door.”

She says the timing of the Bookfair and the amount of money raised will be a real boost for ROC, “Timing is everything. We're heading into winter where there are fewer activities, probably in general. People are outside a little less. We definitely have the full gamut of family interests and kids telling us what they want to do. So, we are gearing up to do about another 300 activity kits for kids in the next few months.” She says they’ll be collecting items like snowshoes, ice fishing supplies, digital cameras, crafts and art supplies and sports equipment.

“We're going to do photography walks with the photographers and go on nature walks. Some of our families have asked for Indigenous dance lessons. They would also like to do home baking and cooking again, with an instructor which will still be virtually. Even pumpkin carving. It's just going to be tons of fun.”

Loewen says, “If they (the kids and families) can dream it, we're going to try and make it happen for them. We’re just so excited now that we can proceed with all of these great things.”

Of the volunteers that helped make the bookfair possible, Loewen says, “They are incredible. I don't know how we got to be this fortunate. It goes all the way from our ROC families who offer to help us with everything, to the Bethesda Auxiliary ladies are still helping us with the books. There people are unbelievable.”

And finally to everyone who has supported of ROC she says,  “Oh goodness, just a huge thank you. For smiles and laughter and purchasing books that help kids. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

Now that the bookfair is over, Loewen says there are two more ways to support ROC.

50/50 for kids is back. Tickets are on sale now with the final draw on December 20th.

ROC Eastman is also looking for sporting equipment. Their families need hockey skate's size 6 and up, helmets and cages, hockey sticks, soccer balls and footballs.