Greek sorority sisters of Delta Theta Beta hosted their first annual book drive “Brighten a child’s day, Give a new book today” on April 27.

The three-hour event was held in front of 15 White Oak Street in New Rochelle. It was open to all Iona College students, staff and the New Rochelle Community.

With the help of Iona students and the surrounding communities the sisters collected over 200 books and over 150 books are being sent to them this coming week.

They earned over 50 dollars at the tag sale and raised over 300 dollars from their online fund. The members have high hopes the number will continue rising.

The books have been gently used and are appropriate books for children from pre-k to high school. The event also accepted used DVDs and computer CD programs to be sold during the tag sale. These donated items were sold to get money for buying new books.

The books are being donated to Francis X Hegerty Elementary School and Island Park Public Library in a small town in Island Park, Long Island.

Both the elementary school and public library lost over 25,000 books and 1.2 million dollars in repairs from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

Francis X Hegerty Elementary School and Island Park Public Library were closed for months from the damage done by the hurricane.

The elementary school, which consisted of kindergarten through fourth grade, was forced to finish their school year in various other locations due to extensive flooding and no power.

The library’s first level was also completely flooded. All of the first level books, including all of the library’s children’s books, were destroyed.

An Iona student who once attended the elementary school and lived in the area of the public library inspired the event. This was her way of giving back to her community.

Delta Theta Beta sister Stephanie Morales said, “Island Park and other areas like Breezy Point were impacted severely. Many of our sisters and Iona community are from Long Island and we wanted to try to ease the suffering for the children through literacy.”

Morales also said “Although it was a good turn out, we wanted more of the community to participate. It was mostly the sorority and fellow Iona students.”

This is not the first time these girls held an event for charity.

They have organized past events with big companies like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Breast Cancer Research Meet Grace, Help for Haiti, and Brianna’s Dream.

A representative for Delta Theta Beta said “Each year, our charitable events are inspired by hardships that our sisters feel strongly about, or may have been affected by personally. Ultimately, we create a deeper bond and come together as a sorority by supporting our sisters.”

The 41 sisters plan to host another book drive before the end of May for the same cause.

They hope to reach 1,000 books so they can “give the gift of literacy and further the future of tomorrow.”