Our friends and partners at Book Harvest need your help! During the next several weeks, children at elementary schools in Durham will have a chance to select a new collection of books to enjoy over the summer as part of the Books on Break program. Book Harvest needs volunteers to help set up a pop-up bookstore in the media center, serve as personal shoppers to the students as they make their selections, and to pack up the extra books.
Books on Break is an effort to combat summer learning loss. Thanks to donations and volunteers, Book Harvest provides a new string backpack and 10 self-selected books to elementary school students on free or reduced lunch. These books are theirs to keep forever and will help then retain their academic skills over the long weeks of summer.
At the end of each school year, many students in our community face a summer without books and academic enrichment. This leads to students losing two months or more of reading skills. Access to books, especially books students choose for themselves, has been shown to stop this decline in reading skills.
In 2016, Books on Break provided books at the start of summer to 9,057 students from 26 elementary schools in four school districts, including Durham! This year, rising kindergartners at 6 of our Transition to Kindergarten Transition Team schools will also have a chance to participate in the Books on Break program.
How can you help?
Volunteers are needed to help with the Books on Break program at Merrick Moore Elementary School (May 16-18), Glenn Elementary School (May 19-23), and Eastway Elementary School (May 24-26). Please sign up to help more children have books to read this summer!
