Written by Megha
I entered my first ever jumble sale with high expectations. We had put in weeks and weeks of work and sorting and pricing and re-pricing and transporting all our donated items. Which came in abundance, thanks to all those people who supported us and donated things they no longer needed. I was assigned the task of sorting books, and so of course, I didn’t have more than a sneak peak of the process that went into sorting all the rest of the jumble we so generously received. The weeks leading up to our first jumble at Panjim were slow, and there was always the question of would there be enough? Would we raise enough money so we could continue to raise readers? Questions that really wouldn’t be answered until the big day.
The week leading up to the sale was the most hectic, with everyone pulling in many hours of work, with the entire team here, at Bookworm showing incredible amounts of resilience and determination to see it through. It’s difficult, I think for an outsider to imagine the amount of hard, hard work that went into our sale. There were times when I was so fatigued I just wanted to sleep and go on a long vacation, I imagine I wasn’t the only one. When we worked to put the sale together, piece by piece, we thought of the end game, and of the children who we would be able to continue to provide stories too. And with love in our hearts, we soldiered on, and tiring though it may have been, it was also incredible amounts of fun.
The day of the jumble was hectic, as you can imagine, we had to set up the day before, and arrive early the next morning, to reach before the crowd, and those that would be supporting us with every sale that they made. There was food, and I think I was very lucky because my book stall was right next to it. I think we all required various amounts of fuel to keep us running throughout the day. And the number of people that came to support us was really overwhelming. The day was hot, the day was long, but we had each other, and with humour, light-heartedness, we got through the day in excellent form.
The Aldona jumble was soon to follow. As tiring as its counterpart, despite the shorter hours. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to a lot of crowd, but we are grateful to the people who did come, to help support the library program in their town!
I’ve known about Bookworm since it started, and I have always made an effort to be part of or to support the jumble, going there for the food, going there for the books, donating anything that I did not use. This was my first year working with and setting up the sale, and up until now, I hadn’t fully realised or appreciated the tremendous amount of sweat and toil that goes into it.
I’m glad, so so glad to have been a part of it, and I’m hoping, dear reader, that in the following year, you will be too!