U. S. Peace Corps Volunteer Scott Hill teaching kindergarten students at Balata Primary, on the island of St. Lucia, about living with disabilities. Hill serves at St. Lucia's Council of and for Persons with Disabilities.

Get inspired! Make a difference!
Of all the amazing folks we've met since starting Hands Across the Sea three years ago, U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers are among the most inspiring. Hands is currently working with 20 Peace Corps Volunteers sprinkled throughout the Eastern Caribbean on the islands of Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. The work they're doing, from AIDS/HIV education to counseling young people to raising literacy levels to teaching special-needs

U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer Alyssa Gaalema with two of her students at St. Georges, on the island of Grenada.

students, is making a huge difference to the well-being of communities in remote island villages. We found the Peace Corps Volunteers to be personable, caring, highly educated, hardworking, and thoroughly professional-wonderfully talented ambassadors of the United States. All of them have told us that working in the Peace Corps has been their lifelong dream, and they are thrilled to be living the dream. We at Hands are gratified to be able to

U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer Ann Crytser with students from a before-school reading group at the St. Clair Dacon Secondary School in the community of Carapan, on the island of St. Vincent. The students arrive at school at 7:30 a.m. to read books together. Four of the five students above have read five books since the activity start-up in February 2009. Book sets donated by Hands Across the Sea will enable the group to continue through the coming year.

assist them in their work.

We asked each Peace Corps Volunteer to assemble a Wish List of books and materials they need to complete their service, whether they're founding a much-needed library, starting an after-school program, or supporting pregnant teenagers. Click here to find their Wish Lists — and you'll also find, in each Peace Corps Volunteer's words, the illuminating background behind each Wish List. We urge you to support these amazing folks by making a cash donation to Hands so that we can purchase "gently used" books at library sales and also fulfill their resource requests. By November, the Wish List items — supporting 39 schools, 7,500 students, and eight community libraries/reading projects in the Hands Caribbean Literacy and School Support (CLASS) program — will be packed into a Tropical Shipping

The temperature is rising! Thanks to generous Hands supporters, the book side of our 50+50 Summer Donation Drive is off to a flying start. Please help us balance the two sides of our gauge with a cash gift!

container and on their way to the Eastern Caribbean!

With summer in full swing, we are happy to report that generous supporters are driving the Hands 50+50 Summer Donation Drive toward success. On the book front, Ann-Wallis White, a charteryacht broker who has been helping island communities for 35 years, recently donated a cargo van's worth (about 80 boxes) of books to shared Eastern Caribbean projects with Hands. Our shining star at Lady Bug Bookstore, Connie MacSweeney, purchased over 500 stellar books for Hands at a Scholastic book sale. Connie also acquired and stored over 3,000 "gently used" children's reading books generously donated by Mrs. Sylvain of the Freetown Elementary School. Meanwhile, Hands has been buying carloads of "gently used" books at library sales (usually, 50 cents a book!) from Connecticut to New Hampshire. The Hands "haul" — 23,000 books and growing — is being palletized and warehoused by another Hands "angel": Matt Pollock of Harte-Hanks. On the cash donation side, your contributions are allowing Hands to buy the vital resources on everyone's Wish Lists (click here to make a cash donation) — please keep the donations coming. Have a great summer! — T.L. and Harriet