This summer Vicksburg High School found itself overstocked with literature workbooks and chose to look around the community to find where the workbooks could best be used.

“The first one on our list just happened to be St. Aloysius, and they immediately expressed interest in receiving them,” said Brad Blake, assistant principal at Vicksburg High.

Nearly 2,000 consumable literature workbooks were transferred from Vicksburg High School to Vicksburg Catholic Schools Thursday free of charge.

“The English teacher immediately said, ‘Oh yes, this is what we were wanting, but we couldn’t get,’” he said.

Vicksburg High received extra workbooks to go along with textbooks this year.

“They sent us a workbook to go along with the textbooks and they just sent us extras so there are a lot overstocked,” Blake said. “We knew we wanted to pass them along to someone who needed them.”

Had St. Al not needed the workbooks, Blake said VHS has a list of other schools and organizations he would have contacted to see if they needed the high school content workbooks.

“(The workbooks) met the needs of all grade levels ninth through 12th,” he said, describing each grade level had a different colored workbook.

“They were very excited to get all of them and immediately put them to use for their students that will be coming in the fall.”

St. Aloysius principal Buddy Strickland had been out of the office at the end of last week but was glad to hear about the donation.

“We are immensely appreciative to their generosity,” he said.

Blake is new to the assistant principal position at Vicksburg High, only a week into the job, but said he isn’t aware of any previous partnership between the private and public schools.

“While it might not be the first of its kind, it’s the first I’ve heard about,” he said.

Blake hopes to change that by talking about ways to serve the community together and having the students interact between the schools. By not restricting the students to their own school buildings or faculties, he said the students will be better exposed to everything the community has to offer.

“Such partnerships between public and private schools will continue to enhance community relations. Our vision at VHS is to increase the frequency of mutually beneficial relationships in the upcoming 2016-2017 school year,” Blake said. “We hope this is the beginning of great things to come.”