The Dartmouth Middle School chapter of National Junior Honor Society collected over 8,500 books for the Acushnet-based non-profit organization Gifts to Give.

Running the drive in coordination with the Dartmouth Middle School Library and teacher librarian Laura Gardner, the group set a goal of collecting 10,000 books for kids and teenagers.

The drive was a homeroom competition with a pizza party as the ultimate prize. The winning 7th grade homeroom collected over 2,000 books.

Homeroom teacher Annie Laurie Jacob said her class was “so happy to give back to the community.”

She added she was “shocked to see the amount of books piled up in the back of my classroom each morning.”

According to Dartmouth Middle School, after eight years of book drives, they have collected a total of over 46,000 books for Gifts to Give.