Student COOP Club: The Lost Legacy of the 1980's Currently dormant, the Student Coop, located in West Halls basement in the past, was once one of the most active clubs until its closure in 1995 for political reasons. The Coop Club was created in 1970 with the general purpose of serving the common interests of the students. According to its bylaws, its aim was primarily to provide a convenient place for the acquisition of necessary products for the AUB community. All the profits made were given for the subsequent funding of student scholarships. At first, the Coop used to buy second hand textbooks from students and resell them at cheaper prices. They bought the books at 60% and sold them at 70%. During the mid-seventies, it added groceries and some pharmaceuticals, which were sold at reduced prices. In 1980, it acquired a copy machine due to the big profits the club earned. The photocopying charge was cheaper than any photocopying center in the area. The students used to describe this photocopying machine as the clearest in the neighborhood. The Coop also invited crafts people in the community to arrange for their art pieces to be displayed for sale. Crochet lessons were featured and offered from time to time. The store sold UNICEF greeting cards all year round, and produced notebooks, which had ten pages more and cost one pound less than other copybooks sold in the area. The club even produced an AUB calendar. The Coop used to sponsor and hold different kinds of activities too. One of the well-known activities it organized was the Annual Arabic Book Exhibition, displaying books from more than 30 publishing houses. In 1983, the Sixth Arabic Book Exhibition exhibited 1750 different titles. Over a period of ten days, the exhibition made a net profit of L.L. 8,000 (add the value), which was donated to scholarships. "Our main concern was to help underprivileged students," Dr. Bassem Saab told Outlook. Dr. Saab, who was president of the Coop Club from 1982 to 1984, is currently a doctor in Family Medicine at AUH. The activities of the club were not confined to the AUB community. Some students used to volunteer to do outside community work. "Some of us used to go down to Nabatieh and help in building a hospital in these once deprived areas. This hospital remained the only hospital till recently when the government opened its own public hospital," Dr. Saab told Outlook. In the past, many students participated in the Coop Club. In 1983, the club had 29 members. "It was a hard task. Students used to volunteer to sit in the basement for three hours each day," Dr. Saab said. Cheap services were afforded and a lot of profit could be made because the students were not paid for their work. "It was not only fun. Students had to give in a lot of their time and had to really work hard. It was a commitment since students worked on a daily basis. The Coop could not open for one day and close the other. It is a shop. You have to make sure it is open when necessary." One thing that hurts Dr. Saab is that such a club does not exist anymore. "The objectives and the goals [of the club] are more than just helping. It teaches the people who work in it organizational skills, teamwork and caring for others. This is as important as the financial profit it provided to scholarship aid funds . . . All that is needed to reopen such a club is to find a couple of people that are interested in helping others." The clubs motto in the '80s was "The world in which we share is vastly larger than the world in which we differ." The activities that the Coop did were of great importance to the AUB community.