• Collection deadline extended by one week to 7 December 2012

NTUC FairPrice (FairPrice) is making an appeal for the public to donate their used textbooks as another 150,000 books are required to meet the needs of this year’s Share-A-Textbook Project. FairPrice hopes to collect over 350,000 textbooks for needy students this year as it marks its 30th anniversary. As of this week, it has collected about 200,000 textbooks in the past three weeks. As such, FairPrice has extended the textbooks collection deadline from 30 November to 7 December 2012. The public can donate their textbooks at all FairPrice supermarkets, FairPrice Finest and FairPrice Xtra outlets islandwide.

“We have received more requests this year from low-income families this year and hope that our customers and the community will be able to help us meet this target by donating more used school textbooks. Sharing your textbooks will not only help another student save money on the cost of education but also helps to save trees by recycling and reusing the textbooks,” said Mr Jonas Kor, Director for Corporate Communications, NTUC FairPrice and Chairperson for the NTUC FairPrice CSR Committee.

About 18,500 students from low-income families have been placed on the priority list for this initiative where they will be able to select the books before the books are open for public distribution. This year, FairPrice has received a 30 percent increase in requests from last year. These students were identified through volunteer welfare organisations (VWOs), Community Development Councils (CDCs), various unions and schools.

First launched in 1983, the scale of the project has grown year-on-year to benefit more students and have eased the cost of education for needy families in Singapore. Over 2.4 million used textbooks have been recycled and more than 153,000 needy students have since benefitted from the project.

The public distribution day for the textbooks will take place on 9 December 2012 at the Share-A-Textbook Project’s Community Partner schools – Changkat Changi Secondary School, Yuan Ching Secondary School and Yio Chu Kang Secondary School – from 9am to 5pm.

Over 650 student volunteers and volunteers from the Supporting and Community Partners will be participating in this initiative this year.

For more information on the project, the public can contact the project hotline at 6424 7505 or email at fptextbook@fairprice.com.sg.