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Every Monday Matters: Donate books By Matthew Emerzian and Kelly Bozza
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) 61 percent of low-income families have no books in their homes. 43 percent of adults with the lowest level of literacy proficiency live in poverty. Only 4 percent of adults with strong literacy skills live in poverty. 55 percent of children have an increased interest in reading when given books at an early age. Children with a greater variety of reading material in the home are more creative, imaginative, and proficient in reading. They are also on a better path toward educational growth and development. There is only one age-appropriate book for every 300 children in low-income neighborhoods, compared to 13 books per child in middle-income neighborhoods. TAKE ACTION TODAY 1. Go through your bookshelves and pull out books that you will never read again or have owned for more than two years and haven't read. 2. Pack the books in a box. 3. Call a library, school, foster-care service or children's organization to see if it needs books. 4. Deliver the books. 5. If you don't have any books at home, purchase some to donate or find an organization that accepts financial donations and will purchase books and deliver them where they are needed. The majority of children in low-income neighborhoods often lack libraries and bookstores. Having access to books is the key to literacy. By donating your books, especially children's books, you can affect some of the 12 million children who don't have books at home. Imagine if you couldn't read this column. YOU MATTER Robbie Miller of Charlotte, N.C., read something that shocked him. The copy read: "55 million adult Americans are limited to a fourth- or fifth-grade reading level or can recognize only a few printed words." As an eighth-grader, Robbie couldn't understand how so many people older than him couldn't read as well as he could. "Not only was I surprised, but it made me sad," he said. "I love to read, and I spend a lot of time doing it. It is how I learn about so many different things." This realization started Robbie on a mission. He was determined to understand why and how this was possible. And it didn't take long for Robbie to learn a few basic facts about illiteracy. The question became how he was going to help change this. He found an answer. "I decided to start a book drive at my school," Robbie said. "One of the things I learned is that a lot of kids don't have access to books and that is why they become illiterate adults. So I wanted to try to gather as many books as I could and then donate them to people who needed them." Robbie created a campaign called "Just One Book." His weeklong campaign called for every student at his school to donate one book. He set up a drop-off box in the library and made fliers that he handed out to all students. "I didn't know if it was going to work, but I figured if I even got 10 books, it was better than nothing," Robbie said. Getting 10 books proved to not be no problem at all. In his weeklong campaign, Robbie collected 484. "Once I had all of the books, I then had to figure out what to do with them, but that turned out to be the easiest part," he said. "I found a small community library, in a poor neighborhood. They had a major shortage of books and no variety whatsoever." With the help of some fellow students and his mom, Robbie packed up the books and delivered them to the library. The head librarian was overcome with emotion and reassured Robbie of the dramatic difference the books were going to make in the community. And it all started with "Just One Book." I guess we just have to be grateful that Robbie was able to read that initial "inspiring" statistic. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here.
© 2009, The Modesto Bee Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
