Schools receive free books

April 23, 2008 10:18 am

— By Sean Bailey / Staff Writer
On any given day, the Whitley County School bus depot usually doesn’t have more than a few books lying around, but on Tuesday 48,500 children’s books filled the depot’s garage.
The books were donated by Scholastic Book publishers as part of the national Save the Children organization’s reading program ClassroomsCare. The depot served as a distribution point for the region, and Whitley County Schools district workers helped organize the large pallets of books.
Vivan Cotterell, the gifted/talented student program coordinator, said each school received 1,000-1,200 books. In total the 48,500 books weighed more than 28,000 pounds.
“After moving and organizing all these books, we found muscles that we forgot we had. All the books came stacked together, and we had to organize them for each of the 40 schools that are receiving them, from schools in eastern Kentucky to Tennessee,” said Heather Stewart, math and science coordinator for Whitley County schools.
Stewart said the books were donated for the schools’ libraries and Accelerated Reader after-school programs.
The books donated locally will be used for Whitley County’s Accelerated Reader program. Stewart said the Accelerated Reader programs vary from school to school, but most involve getting students interested in reading and providing them with education on healthy eating with Save the Children’s CHANGE (Creating Healthy, Active, and Nurturing Growing-up Environments) program.
“The CHANGE program gives fresh fruit-type snacks to the children, and they are even able to give gas vouchers to parents to pick their kids up in the afternoon,” Cotterall said.
Cindy Moses coordinates Whitley Central Intermediate School’s Accelerated Readers after-school club. Moses said her group includes 55 third- through sixth-graders who stay after school four days a week. Students typically get a 30-minute guided free-reading time, when students read on their own. They are monitored by staff to make sure they are reading at the correct level while still challenging themselves.
“Besides making sure they are reading something at their level, we also want to make sure that what they are reading is interesting to them. We really try our best to foster the love of reading in the students,” Moses said.
According to the Save the Children Web site, The total number of books donated is based on the number of books read by children in participating classrooms nationwide.
Scholastic Book Clubs has donated over 1.5 million books through ClassroomsCare since 2001. The company has donated 375,000 books in 2005 in support of U.S. children served by Save the Children living in rural poverty.

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