Ex-South African helps school library turn new page

After Gary Meyers, a South African architect living in Australia, helped raise enough money for a new prosthetic arm for Kerry-Lee Brandt Salamon, he set his sights on raising funds to renovate the media centre at the Orange Grove Primary School where the pair met.

Marion Bloch, Gill Jankelowitz, and Barbara Novick, who volunteer with Salamon at the Orange Grove Primary School saw what he did for her, and approached him to help them raise funds to renovate the school media centre.

“Twenty years ago, I, a retired librarian, and a small group of dedicated women who felt as passionate about books as I did, started a library for the pupils in a run-down house on the school’s property,” said Bloch. “We fixed it up as best we could, using clothes cupboards as bookshelves and off-cuts of second-hand carpets for the pupils to sit on.”

Meyers, who is a friend of Novick, said he was “roped in” to help and went to see the place when he was last in Johannesburg last June. “The library was dilapidated,” he said.

“The carpet was falling apart, half the books were damaged, and they didn’t even have bookshelves. It leaked when it rained. It was cold. There was no air conditioning. There was no heating. I don’t think the walls were ever painted. There was no lighting. I think there were naked fluorescent lights in there,” Meyers told the SA Jewish Report.

“These women don’t get paid, it’s all on a volunteer basis. They bring stuff from home, give stuff. They just help,” said Meyers.

He started a GoFundMe page for the project in December 2023. It took him a few months to pull the project together, and the renovations were completed in August this year.

As well as raising the money, Meyers recruited Jodi Kampel of Kez Design Studio to design what the media centre would look like to spur more donations. “We had a wonderful concept, which we changed a bit because it would have been too expensive,” said Meyers. “But it gave everyone a vision and a clarity of purpose.

“It was amazing that on my most recent visit to the school in August, I was able to see the difference this has made. The kids are beyond excited about this new space. They were high fiving me as I walked by,” said Meyers. “They had a new carpet, new bookshelves, and they fixed the bathrooms. They fixed the lighting, and the leaking roof. They put new cabinetry in, and they put up a big TV for the kids. And they got new books, and new furniture. It’s bright and cheerful.

“I believe that if we teach people right and give them a good education, they go to jobs rather than crime,” said Meyers. “I know that these women believe this too, so I thought it was a worthy cause.

“If we look after people at the age of eight or nine years old, and show them that education is important, it stops them from mugging, killing, and fighting. It’s such a good investment in the future of this country.”

Said Bloch, “I thought his passion would be dampened once I told him that we had no money, but not to be daunted, he immediately set up a GoFundMe campaign and raised the money needed to make Orange Grove Primary School Library a beautiful, welcoming haven for the children to experience the beauty of literature and wealth of knowledge that can be found in books.”

Meyers campaigned rigorously to get donations for this project, with his GoFundMe getting 39 donations. “Most of the people that gave were people from overseas,” he said, “which I thought was lovely in terms of expat South Africans giving back and feeling the way I do about this beautiful country.

“I do this because I love this country. I love the people. I always have, even though I’ve been living overseas for 39 years.”