New library for Onoun

Onoun, an outer island in the Northwest region, 140 miles NW of Weno, Chuuk now has a 20,000 volume library thanks to The Cuthbert Project, St. Paul’s Christian School, on Guam, Matson Navigation and the hundreds of volunteers on Onoun who helped move and assemble the complete collection, including shelves, in about 48 hours.

Last August St. Paul’s Christian School contacted The Cuthbert Project about taking the library from Trinity Christian School, in Yigo, for use in the Federated States of Micronesia where The Cuthbert Project focuses its educational efforts. With the help of Hagens Inc. the books, over a 3 day period, were loaded, moved to Hagens warehouse and palletized for shipment. Fr. Floren, the principal of WeiPat High school on Onoun provided the dimensions of the space to be dedicated to the library and shelves were designed, cut and prepared for future assembly on Onoun. ( It was estimated that it would require 1400 lineal feet of shelf space ) The space also needed new windows, doors, lights and ceiling fans which were shipped with the books.

Matson graciously agreed to provide a 20 foot container and to ship the entire library to Weno at no charge. Hagens did the packing, Kwik Space on Guam did the trucking and Triple B Freight shipped an additional 5 pallets of books, which could not fit into the container, to Weno.

The container and additional books arrived in Weno the middle of January. The container was placed on the dock and a motor vessel was moored next to it so the 20+ volunteers could manually transfer books, shelves, lumber, windows, lights and tools into the holds of the 90 foot vessel. Shrink wrapped and palletized books were carried on the open deck. The complete transfer was accomplished in about 6 hours. The shipment also contained equipment for the clearing of Onoun’s runway which had become overgrown.

After a 30+ hour trip to Onoun the 90 foot vessel arrived at Onoun about 6 PM on Friday, January 25 and off loading began early the next day. The first items to be off loaded were the shelves and construction materials and assembly immediately began on the shelving units. T.R. Mori and his cousin G.R., from Weno, took charge of the shelf assembly and quickly gathered a group of willing helpers so that as the first books started to arrive they were immediately placed in shelving units. In the 48 hours, between Saturday morning and the following Monday morning all shelving units were assembled and all books had been off loaded, hauled up from the beach and placed in the shelving units.

The motor vessel anchored about a quarter of a mile off shore so the books had to be removed from the holds, placed in small boats and taken to the shore where the school students carried them the 200 yards to the new library. Based on the volume of books involved the students probably made over 2,000 trips from the beach to the library over the 2 day period.

While the shelves were being assembled Kin Dela Cruz of Hagens Inc. gathered a willing crew of volunteers and began installing new window frames, jalousies and louvers to properly secure the library space. He also supervised a local electrician in the installation of the ceiling lights and fans.

A year ago The Cuthbert Project installed a 30 station computer lab at the same school which is powered by a large photovoltaic array installed by the European Union in 2009.