Mission: Connecting Kids & Community through Literacy
This program's mission is accomplished by the following approach, which is made possible primarily through the efforts of our community volunteers.
- Collecting new and gently used children's books at many locations throughout the Lehigh Valley—at major corporations, banks, government centers, schools, and other businesses and organizations
- Supporting early intervention by providing books for children in the pre-school years—birth through kindergarten
- Distributing books to young people at the elementary and middle school level throughout the Lehigh Valley and supplementing the libraries in schools or other child-centered organizations
- Taking the community into the schools and demonstrating to our children our commitment to their future by visiting classrooms and reading to the students whenever possible—police officers, high school and college students, municipal leaders, retired teachers, members of the business community and local organizations all volunteer their time to be a part of this experience
- Personalizing the literacy experience by including in each book a special label that is signed by the member(s) of the community participating in the event
- Establishing a Reading Room, in conjunction with Northampton Community College (NCC), at the NCC Fowler Family Southside Center as part of a neighborhood revitalization effort
- Organizing community-wide events at which free books are distributed and children and their families have an opportunity to interact with the volunteers who make this program the success that it is
Why this Program was Need
U.S. census data told us that there were areas of the Lehigh Valley, including parts of the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, where a significant percentage of families lived at or below the poverty level. These areas also had a lower high school graduation rate than the overall state of Pennsylvania. Research revealed that:
- According to the article "Making a Difference: Stamping Out Illiteracy" by Dr. Geraldine L. Haggard, a study by the Packard and McArthur Foundation stated that children from middle class homes had 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading by the time they entered school—children at the poverty level had only 25 hours of one-on-one reading;
- According to "The State of Literacy in America," 60 percent of the poorest children had no books in their homes;
- Newman and Stanford found that the best way to improve the literacy growth of these children was to increase access to print;
- Public and school libraries can help; however, the only behavior measure that is significantly related to improved reading scores was the number of books in the home—children from low-income homes need to own books.
Our Impact
This program distributes thousands of books each year—books for children to, in fact, own. In addition, every effort is made to let the children know that their community cares. High school and college students, volunteers from local businesses and organizations, retired teachers, and municipal leaders join police officers and other community volunteers in this remarkable effort by participating in book collection and distribution events.
