Every year in March since 2005, the Walter Johnson Booster Club holds a book fair to raise money to help fund the many clubs and extracurricular activities at WJ.

“The Pitch, Spectator, as well as the sports teams, benefit from the fair,” parent and Booster Club organizer Barbara Ferry said. “Any organization of the school can apply for funding and receive money raised by Booster Club events.”

The book fair raises money by selling used books for all ages — infants, toddlers, teens, young adults and adults — with costs ranging from $1 for paperbacks to $2 for hardcover books. This year’s book fair offered a large selection of books on a broad variety of subjects, including history, family, fiction, business, health, foreign languages and much more. CDs, DVDs, collectibles and (new this year) video games were also sold.

“I’ve been volunteering at the book fair for more than four years and this is the largest number of donations we have ever received,” Ferry said. “I would estimate we received more than 10,000 books this year.”

Many students, parents, other community members and book dealers lined up to purchase these items. Some even paid a $5 entry fee to be allowed into the Book Fair one hour earlier than the general public in order to have the first opportunity to purchase books of interest to them.

“Many people paid $5 to get in early, mainly book dealers,” volunteer junior Maggie Quinn said. “I even saw a guy with a scanner attached to his phone, which I assumed he was using to scan the quality and value of the books. I thought it was interesting.”

What many found most enticing about the book fair was the affordability of the books on sale.

“I bought a book for a psychology class that I am interested in taking next year and found it so affordable because it only cost me a dollar,” volunteer freshman and customer Michael Endrias said. “Literally, a dollar.”

Though prices for the used books were relatively inexpensive, the book fair was still a quite profitable event, especially since the Ridge Stone Book Fair had recently closed down several years, driving more prospective customers to the WJ Book Fair.

“We made $19,050 — a record amount,” Ferry said. “We estimate less than $1500 in expenses, so [this was] a very good year for the book sale.”

Even though a large number of books and items were successfully sold, some items remained unsold.

“We donate the remainders to Velocity of Books, a charitable organization that redistributes books to other organizations,” Ferry said.