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Shari Scher won't tote many clothes with her when she travels to the Dominican Republic on July 23. Instead, she'll be bringing 50 pounds of books.

Scher and her husband, Howie, plan to deliver dozens of Spanish-language books to the rural village of Los Tocones later this month to establish a children's library there.

Since March, the Schers of Frederick have collected and catalogued nearly 400 new children's books, bought and donated by the community or mailed from as far away as California and Great Britain.

The idea for the library is rooted in the couple's language-immersion and service trip in July 2008 to Los Tocones. Learning Language Foundation, a Frederick-based organization that teaches foreign languages, organized the trip to the village situated in the Caribbean country's northeastern Saman· Peninsula.

The Schers stayed with the extended family of Chris Doherty, a Frederick resident and co-founder of Learning Language Foundation, and his wife, Julia.

During their stay, the Schers realized the depth of need in the village by visiting the local elementary and high schools and talking with teachers.

"They were great kids, but I didn't see books," Scher said last month. Students didn't own textbooks, but copied portions of the teacher's textbook into their composition notebooks. Scher, who is also an early childhood curriculum specialist for Frederick County Public Schools, said that by the time the trip was over, she and her husband knew they were going to return.

"This is our payback to the town for being wonderful people," she said of the library.

Scher began with an e-mail asking family and friends to donate what they could to the library, and "suddenly it started happening," she said.

Personal checks and books in soft and hard covers from friends, families and strangers started to make their way to the Schers' West Patrick Street doorstep. With each person's monetary donation, Scher has personally selected books and will paste a label inside the book bearing the benefactor's name.

Books for children of all ages, including the Harry Potter series and "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss, are among the library's collection. Scher said she expects to have more than 500 books by July 23.

Hood College, Parkway and Whittier Elementary schools and Frederick High School have also donated books and school supplies.

Since the cost of shipping the books is too expensive and delivery is complicated by the village's rural and remote location, the Schers and Doherty's cousins will personally deliver them.

Doherty — who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 1986-88 — described Los Tocones as a "T in the road" with three corner stores, two churches and a cluster of 40 houses made of cement and tin roofs.

Many people live outside the village's center and travel by horseback or foot. Public transportation is a double cab pick-up truck, Doherty said, and public libraries are scarce.

"There's not much of a public library system in the country, period," Doherty said. "The resources for libraries are usually going to be in the capital … and other affluent cities."

During his Peace Corps service, Doherty noted that the village's school only went up to the eighth grade. Students had to travel an hour by car to further their education or "unless you had family in the nearest city," Doherty added, "you basically didn't study beyond the eighth grade." The village now has a high school, though much of the country's population remains under-educated.

"We hope that [the library] will inspire more reading and as a result a higher degree of literacy," Doherty said.

The Dominican Republic's Saman· Peninsula also has a connection to American history, Doherty added. Freed slaves and escapees settled the peninsula prior to the American Civil War, he said, resulting in the area's diverse legacy of English and Dutch surnames and Protestant faiths.

For more information about donating books, e-mail Shari Scher at scher12345@comcast.net.

E-mail Katherine Mullen at kmullen@gazette.net.