To be held today and tomorrow at Bathurst Showground, the book fair has become a major annual fundraising event for the organisation.

Much of the funding required to continue its 24-hour crisis telephone counselling service comes from the sale of donated books.

The books cover all genres, including fiction, military, biographies, cooking, craft, and other hobbies. They are priced from 50 cents, with many in near-new condition.

There are oodles of paperbacks on offer, as well as coffee table books, magazines, comics, jigsaws and more.

With in excess of 30,000 titles, there’s bound to be something for everyone.

Lifeline Central West CEO Alex Ferguson said the book fair, now in its fourth year, makes between $25,000 and $35,000 each year, which goes towards training crisis support volunteers.

“Lifeline, nationally, will answer somewhere over 600,000 phone calls this year. But that will grow in the coming years,” he said.

“Our volunteers respond to crisis calls about relationships, mental illness, depression, anxiety, it can be loneliness, it can be a range of things.

“The money that we raise through the book fair largely goes to training. We are constantly training volunteers, because we keep needing more volunteers to keep addressing the growing numbers of people who need our service.”

Across Australia, Lifeline has a workforce of around 2800 trained counsellors, backed by 12,500 volunteers.

To be able to man the phones, volunteers undertake 14 weeks of training at a cost of around $2500 per volunteer.

“It’s expensive, but it needs to be. In many cases, we’re dealing with people’s lives,” Mr Ferguson said.

He said it was evident there were a lot of people in the community struggling.

“People can claim the victim status when they get cancer, or catch cancer. But people don’t claim the victim status when they catch depression. All the nasty sayings come out: you’re a nutter, you’re a this, you’re a that,” he said.

“People who are suffering mental illness often keep quiet. And unless they seek help, it’s not going to get any easier.”

Mr Ferguson offered special thanks to all contributors to the event, particularly Bathurst Correctional Centre general manager Bill Fittler.

“Bill moved hell and high water to get us some day release guys to come and help us again,” Mr Ferguson said. 

“They come down and put everything out on the tables, and then they help us pack everything up.”

The Salvos also contribute a significant number of books to be sold over the weekend.

The Lifeline Central West Bathurst Mega Book Fair will be open from 9am-4pm today and tomorrow. 

Entry is by gold coin donation.