Staten Island to Sri Lanka: Books for the Soul
Staten Island Advance
They just seem to collect dust on your shelves: The novels you read
once and never again reopened, the text books with math equations
you promptly forgot after college and the reference collections that
the Internet has recently made seem so wildly obsolete.
To clear space for new literature you'll receive this holiday
season, you could bring your old reads to a thrift store and hope
they'll be bought, or guiltily leave them out on the street,
expecting somebody will take them before the rain moves in. Some of
you may have even entertained thoughts of slipping the old books
into the trash - it has been known to happen.
If so, you probably do not know Harold Sirisena. Where some people
see another used book, Sirisena imagines a student in Sri Lanka
picking the volume up, gently touching its spine, thumbing the
pages, sitting down and cherishing the chance to read.
For over two decades, the St. George resident has been a conduit for
connecting the overabundance of printed material here with the
overabundance of need in his home country in the Indian Ocean, where
there is a 91 percent literacy rate, but because of widespread
poverty, conflict and natural disasters, books are in scarce supply.
"Look at children; look at how education improves life; reading
improves life for a peaceful society," said Sirisena, 62. "Books are
a gift. When we stock the libraries with books, everybody has a
chance to read."
You might have seen Sirisena, his wife and two daughters on one of
their Saturday sojourns to Staten Island garage sales - a
soft-spoken, modest man with kind eyes and white hair who has never
taken donations of money for his cause - buying all the books in
sight.
You might have noticed him combing the stacks at used book stores,
or quietly packing up unused, old editions and publisher freebies at
colleges and public libraries. You may even have caught him picking
through the trash for salvageable reading material.
"I feel very hurt and very sad when I see books that have been
thrown out," said Sirisena, who voice takes on tones of reverence
when he speaks about the written word. "I think about the people
without books in the world, and these books are worth their weight
in gold."
This year 439 boxes - or more than 17,500 books - went to 85 high
schools, 12 social service organizations, seven universities and a
botanical garden. Used eyeglasses also went to a doctors'
association. The treasures ranged from children's picture stories,
to classics by Emerson, Hemingway and Dickens to hundreds of
science, math and computer texts.
Collections of vinyl records - fast becoming an anachronism here -
went to a school for the blind. The Bronx Botanical Garden donated
60 boxes of books and journals to stock the library of a new
botanical garden in the south of the country, where efforts are
being made now to protect the canopy that has been depleted in
recent decades.
There is always a need for globes, maps and astronomy books for the
people deeply attuned to the rhythms of the natural world and shifts
of the stars in the night sky.
"To me it's the same as everything in this country and the rest of
the world. We have too much of everything on every level," said Myra
Hauben, a chemistry professor at the College of Staten Island, who,
along with her colleagues last year, donated to Sri Lankan college
students promotional copies of text books which otherwise just take
up space in their offices.
"I'm delighted to be able to send them." Since 1985, when Sirisena
and his wife first mailed two boxes of books from the St. George
Post Office, the mission has grown into a vocation for them, with
networks of people helping in both continents.
They began working with a shipper in the 1990s, and after the 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami put an international spotlight on the country
and the Staten Island Buddhist Vihara, Port Richmond, where Sirisena
packs and stores the donations, the project has grown.
"Even used pencils, pens, everything is needed," said Sirisena,
recalling how a casual conversation struck up on the ferry with two
nuns from the now-shuttered St. Paul's School, New Brighton,
resulted in all three of them leaving the ferry terminal at 10 p.m.
to collect erasers, pencils and other materials for some of the
children affected by the tsunami.
For Sirisena, who grew up too poor to afford shoes, the gift of a
few books from teachers - including a cherished work by Socrates -
inspired him to pursue an education and a chemistry degree.
After moving to the U.S. 27 years ago, he worked his way from gas
station attendant to his current position as an administrator at
City Tech in Brooklyn.
"What they used to do during our time, is the school had one book
and the teacher read and it we took notes," said Sirisena, about his
childhood. "You couldn't find the books in the library."
It is still true today, he said. Children in rural areas who receive
the gift of books from Staten Island often cannot afford stamps to
send thank you letters. The cards - and there have been many - are
usually taken to local Buddhist temples, where the monks bundle the
letters together and send them.
"Here we are in the land of abundance where we have so much at our
disposal. To be able to benefit somebody overseas, with what we
consider excess, is wonderful," said Louis Blois, a math professor
at the College of Staten Island, one of many professors at CSI as
well as Columbia University, the New School and other institutions
thankful for Sirisena's regular visits to pack up the books that
would otherwise languish.
"I was very able to open up my shelves and my heart to the people of
Sri Lanka." Donated books can be dropped off at the Staten Island
Buddhist Vihara, 115 John St. 718-556-2051.
By Deborah Young
Reprinted here with permission
from the
