The Adventure of the Donated Detective

We are Target Who and since we started this project we have asked many people for help.  Friends, family, teachers and one or two other people too.  However, some people did not wait to be asked.  They just loved what we are doing and did what they could to help us.  We have had people mentioning us in blogs, podcasts and news websites and a great many people re-tweeting our links.  Thank you all.  

Today I want to talk about one particular incident and the adventure that followed because of it.  It all started right back at the beginning on 3^rd May when I became the first member of the team to get our story into the local papers.  By the end of the day the story had been spotted by Stephen Kelly of the Radio Times and transferred to their website, giving it a much wider audience.  Ever since then we have had a steady stream of inquiries from schools starting “I read about you in the Radio Times...” Thank You Steve and thank you Radio Times.   

They didn’t stop there though, because on the 9^th May we received this email:

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Dear Mr Dovey,

I am contacting you from Radio Times, where I am aware that we recently ran a piece on your philanthropic actions to secure children’s books to donate to schools.  We much admire your actions and would like to see if we can offer some more books for your cause.

We have a large number of Sherlock Holmes books that we would like to donate to your cause.  Please do let me know if this would be something you are interested in.

Kind regards,

Olivia Thomson
Marketing Team Assistant, Radio Times & Group Legal

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Needless to say we said a very loud yes and an even louder thank you.
They needed to obtain permission from the publisher first, and on the 15th May we received another email confirming that Penguin Books were happy for us to have these books and donate them to Senior Schools.  Thank You Radio Times and Penguin Books.

I then got a call from Malcolm Bins of Loricas Solutions to organise delivery.  The books themselves would be sent to me on a pallet in a large articulated lorry - far too large to ever get down my small road.  More help was needed, so I soon found myself at my local CO-OP Supermarket asking the hugest of favours of their staff.  They agreed to help immediately and on 26^th May, the Duty Manager Liam Neale and his staff took delivery and with the help of my friend Eric Temple they were unpacked and moved into my possession.  Thanks to the combined efforts of these people we now have a number of Sherlock Holmes books to also donate to senior schools!  They have quickly been spread around our various hubs over the last week, so hopefully schools will begin receiving them soon.  Thank you Loricas Solutions and CO-OP Longlevens.

We are Target Who and we are incredibly grateful for the support we have received so far.  Every book could be that 'MAGIC BOOK' that turns a reluctant reader into a regular reader, and today we have more potential 'Magic books' to share.

Target Who would like to thank Stephen Kelly, Olivia Thomson, The staff of the Radio Times, Penguin Books, Malcolm Binns, Loricas Solutions, Liam Neale and the staff of the CO-OP Supermarket, Longlevens and Eric Temple who helped to make it possible for us to also donate Sherlock Holmes Books into the school libraries of thousands of Children.