Pi Gamma Mu’s annual book and bake sale raised funds of more than $800 on Sept. 26 and 27, the biggest sale PGM advisor Randy Bertolas has seen.  

Bertolas, a Wayne State College geography professor, said $800 doesn’t sound like a lot of money in the long run, but they were adding in 25 or 50 cents at a time. 

“We hope you buy a book, read it, enjoy it, and then give it back,” Bertolas said. “We’ll sell it again next year to someone who might want to read it.” 

“When you want to buy books, you go to Barnes & Noble, and you spend like $100,” Abigail Hasemann, a music education student, said. “You go to this thing, you buy five books, it’s like maybe $3. I did only spend $3 at this entire thing. So I really liked that, I liked that they were very cheap and yet high-quality books.”  

“It’s a good way to get books that otherwise wouldn’t be available, would have been kept on a bookshelf or in a closet, back into the reading community,” Sara Lundeen, president of Pi Gamma Mu, said. “It’s a service project in that way, that we are recycling books back into the community, and the baked goods are just a nice little perk for the people who might not want books but want something to eat between classes or on their way to class.”  

“It’s a bit of a fundraiser for us so we can buy pizza for our meetings, and we also donate to local causes throughout the year,” Bertolas said. “Maybe we’ll write a $100 check now to Haven House or something, but it’s a recycling project to get books and good reading in the hands of students.” 

Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society for the social sciences, has been putting on a book sale for so long most people weren’t sure when it started. 

“I honestly don’t remember,” Bertolas said. “I’ve been doing it a quarter century, 25 years, and when I took it over I remembered seeing a stack of books on the table in the lobby with a can, ‘Please donate here; take a book and donate.’ Probably not very many years before I took it over, so it’s probably been around for maybe 25 years, 30, or something like that.” 

“I don’t know how it started, I don’t know when it started, but it has been going on for many years,” Lundeen said. “Dr. Bertolas always says he doesn’t need to advertise for the books, people just give them to him, and so it’s to the point where it’s that big of a project and service every year that retired professors or people just moving away from Wayne are just giving boxes of books to Dr. Bertolas.”  

Lundeen and Bertolas said they were grateful to everyone who had a hand in helping with the sale. “This isn’t a Dr. Bertolas project,” Bertolas said. “This is a Pi Gamma Mu and all these affiliated students, and all these donors, and all the folks who come and buy from us project. It truly takes a village to put this book and bake sale on.”