During the past year, children from the community have been selecting free books from Read to Learn Books for Free bookshelves.
These books have been provided by other kids in our community — kids helping kids. Via book drives, special events and personal donations, Read to Learn Books for Free, a literacy initiative sponsored by Miami Book Fair and The Children’s Trust, has been diligently collecting books to insure that all kids in the community have free access to books, and to the joy and adventure of walking through windows and doors made possible by reading.
Publix Supermarkets hosted a staff-driven book drive and for collecting 9,000 plus books; TD Bank and First Book collected over 6,000 books; Miami-Dade Public Library collected more than 5,600 books; City of Coral Gables for spearheaded an ongoing book drive thus far collecting over 700 books at the Coral Gables Youth Center; Miami-Dade Police Department for collected 400-plus books; Florida Memorial University for collected almost 400 books, and Limmud Miami who, during a one-day book drive, collected 285 children’s books.
Ponce de Leon Middle school student Braulio Gonzalez and Librarian Mercy Mont-Ros collected 1,717 books, and Anjana Mishra, who along with her two children Shreeya and Shaunak of Palmer Trinity and Leewood K-8, since 2014, collected 5,000-plus books. Etta Gold, librarian for Temple Beth Am, collected over 580 books in just a couple of months, and Miami-Dade County Public Schools donated almost 4,000 books from its warehouse.
Students of Ponce de Leon Middle, Cushman, Southwest Miami High, Casa Dei Bambini Montessori, Palmetto Elementary, Gulliver Academy, Carver Middle, Palmer Trinity, Leewood K-8 Center, and Glades Middle School together have collected over 6,000 books during the 2015-16 school year.
From the beginning of the 2015 school year to the present, Read to Learn Books for Free has distributed more than 113,307 books to the children of the community.
Read to Learn Books for Free works on two community-based levels: young children are able to select books for free from 40 bookshelves found in a variety of locations around the county, such as juvenile court to community service offices, clinics, park and community centers.
Because the books fly off the shelves, they are restocked weekly. To meet the demand of stocking 3,500 books per week, children’s books always are being collected.
Visit www.MiamiBookFair.com to find a Read to Learn Books for Free donation bin closest to you.
