by Nacole Vickery and Denise Gary
Photographs by Lori Cothrun and Waste Management Phoenix Open
What a thrilling surprise! Kids Need to Read is bursting with joy at the receipt of over 75,000 gorgeous books delivered on 30 pallets by GreaterGood.org. The gift was facilitated by the publisher, Capstone Publishing, as part of their 25th Anniversary celebration, for which they dedicated 250,000 books to charitable purposes. Most are hardcover, library bound books for elementary school-aged children and the one wish of the publisher was that the books be given directly to children. We have an enormous waiting list of organizations desiring to do just that!
This substantial donation has allowed Kids Need to Read to expand The Page Coach, READ Together, Our Shelves to Yours, and Grow Your Library programs exponentially. Many of the books will be used to fulfill a great number of KNTR’s overwhelming backlog of Our Shelves to Yours applications sent by organizations across the United States in desperate need of books for the children they serve. We have recently been journeying to several Arizona cities in The Page Coach to give these books to disadvantaged children, including El Mirage, Mesa, Payson, Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, and Window Rock, and this is only the beginning! The books will also fill the summer and winter break reading packages for children participating in READ Together in 115 classrooms across the country, and will be put into the hands of children who enjoy the national Grow Your Library events. What an honor it is to distribute these treasures to children who lack access to books!
Thank you so very much to GreaterGood.org for sharing this incredible gift with Kids Need to Read, in order that we may provide for the many deserving children awaiting our organization’s literacy services! Much gratitude to Capstone Publishing, as well, for their generous contribution to the cause and their recommendation of Kids Need to Read! We could not be more appreciative to have been included in this bounty of beautiful books!
