ALBANY, GA -- Palmyra Road United Methodist Church looked more like a library Saturday morning.
They had thousands of books, but they were collected for thousands of troops overseas. It was part of an endeavor called Operation Paperback.
“We send media of all nature to our troops around the world, to their families and to V.A. hospitals and anybody that's in uniform or has been uniform,” said Gary Callaway of Operation Paperback.
Most of that media is books donated from civilians.
“Not only are we keeping books out of the landfill and we're recycling a reusable resource, but were sending them to our troops. So we're giving our troops an opportunity to escape into a good book at no charge to them,” said Myra Hundley from the church.
But this church isn't a staging area of books to go out. It holds the excess. Support's been so great they have to sell off some the books they can't ship.
“We have to pay for postage and office supplies so we take the books that we don't have as much requests for and we sell them to raise money,” said Callaway.
When it comes to genres, you name it Operation Paperback collects them. They make sure what whatever request they have gets filled.
“I had a young man that asked us for books on evolution or on how to pick up women and you know what we fill those requests and if we don't have it we buy it,” said Callaway.
It's a small relief and a slice of home for the men and women in combat.
“War is a very intense experience and you need to have a way to get away from it and even if it is only for 10 minutes or 15 minutes at a time,” said Callaway.
“It’s something simple that people here stateside can do to support our troops to let them know that they are in our thoughts and they are in our prayers and they are in our hearts and we appreciate them,” said Hundley.
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