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“I feel really good,” she said. “I’m a mixture of elated and exhausted, I haven t had time to stop and think.” It s been a huge community effort to get the sale up and running, with schoolchildren and other community organisations coming together to set up 300 tonnes worth of books for avid readers to peruse over Queen’s Birthday Weekend. “Most of the people come here year after year after year. People come here for their bargains and their treasures,” Spicer said. Ella Diprose, 29, and her 14-month-old daughter were ready for a rest after their second trip to the book sale in a day.
Warwick Smith/Stuff
This usual chaos of hunting at the Red Cross Book Sale was reduced to a three-month browse after Covid-19 halted the annual three-day sale this year. Sale manager Jill Spicer said the venture had raised about $40,000 for Red Cross projects, well below the $140,000 the traditional sale usually raised, which was attributed to the reduced number of books that could be displayed in the smaller space. A spokeswoman for the charity said it was a learning curve for Red Cross that large fundraising events such as the street appeal in March or the book sale could not be blindly relied on to bring in cash.