Midn. 3/C Jonathan Williams shops for books at the Naval Academy’s Combined Federal Campaign Book Fair, which raised over $1,500 for charity. USNA photo by Patrick Gordon.
Spread over several tables, tales of intrigue and historical texts lay spine-to-spine with satirical stories and technical manuals. But this was not a scene from the local library or book shop; it was the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) book fair on the second floor of Dahlgren Hall.
From Nov. 10-14, the Naval Academy CFC held a book fair to raise funds for and awareness of the CFC program. CFC campaign managers collected book donations from around the Yard and then sold them for $2 a piece, raising a total of $1,530. All proceeds from the book fair benefitted the Wounded Warrior Project, a CFC charity that provides services to severely wounded service members and their families.
Naval Academy CFC coordinators Lt. Brett Williams and Ensign Dan Hartig spearheaded the book fair, an idea they heard about while attending a training seminar for the central Maryland CFC campaign. Personnel assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA) at Ft. Meade, Md., organized a book fair with great success.
‘‘It worked out really well for the NSA so we thought that might work out here, especially since this is an academic institution,” said Hartig.
According to the CFC website, www.opm.gov⁄CFC, the CFC is an annual workplace charity campaign intended to ‘‘promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.” Federal employees, including federal civilians, postal service personnel and uniformed service members, can choose from a number of non-profit charities to which to donate.
‘‘The CFC exists to make it easier to give to charity,” said Hartig, noting that the option of giving via payroll deductions makes donating to CFC charities especially appealing.
‘‘It’s easier to just say, ‘Well I’ve got 26 paychecks a year, take five dollars out of each paycheck,’ and before you know it, you’ve just given $130 easily and you can distribute the money any way you like, to as many charities as you want,” said Hartig.
Patrons of the book fair were able to peruse the wide selection of donated books, which included everything from novels to service manuals dating from 1913.
‘‘I’d gotten this email about the book drive for CFC. I thought I’d check it out to see if there were any books I was interested in,” said Midn. 3⁄C Jonathan Williams of 26th Company.
Williams said that while he had never donated to the CFC before, he liked the idea of his purchase at the book fair going to a good cause.
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