The Joliet Job Corps Center’s Green Team recently collected dozens of gently used text books from their classrooms and donated them to a book depository.

“That’s what the Green Team does,” student Keith Roberts said. “We handle the recycling at the Center.”

SCARCE, or School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education, is a not-for-profit based in Glen Ellyn that accepts unneeded educational supplies and then distributes them to schools in this country and others at no cost.

Executor Director Kay McKeen started SCARCE in 1990 after she began teach-ing DuPage County schools students about recycling and environmental issues. She quickly realized that many schools had stacks of textbooks in storage gather-ing dust. So she began a book rescue project to distribute the used books to schools that could not afford to buy them.

“We give everything away,” McKeen said.

On Monday, Business Community Liaison Stewart Warren, Keith and student Courtney Lien loaded the books into a truck and drove them to SCARCE.

(Left to right) A SCARCE volunteer, Courtney Lien and Keith Roberts unload 11 boxes of books from the Joliet Job Corps Center's pickup truck.

“It feels really good to know that books we don’t need can be used by someone else,” Courtney said. “These books don’t belong in a landfill.”