January 2023 - RAISING A READER UPDATE

WAGONS OF BOOKS

The Raising a Reader Committee had a successful 2022 Children’s Book Drive, collecting over 3,700 books! We are happy to report that 500 books were given directly to Raising a Reader classrooms throughout the county and 500 were given to the SLO Food Bank for inclusion in their Breakfast Bags. Another 1,000 books have been given to Raising a Reader Early Learning Centers (ELC) in Paso Robles, Oceano and Grover Beach via our Wagons of Books project, which involves a team of two RAR members going to those ELC’s with our red wagons and offering children, parents, siblings, and caregivers a chance to select a few books for their home library. The smiles of the children and the gratitude of their parents for this gift of books is heartwarming and makes all our efforts worthwhile. We have two more deliveries scheduled in January 2023.

Also in 2023, we are making plans to coordinate with the SLO Food Bank to take our Wagons of Books to sites around the County when the Food Bank is making their deliveries so that kids and their families can take home both food supplies (food for the body) and books (food for thought).

The RAR Committee

RAISING A READER is a national, award-winning, early childhood literacy program which helps family develop, practice, and maintain home literacy routines.

RAR provides children a bookbag, 4 books (rotating the selection weekly), and library introduction with first library card

RAR also provides parents and guardians training and resources for literacy and oral language development, to support a child’s reading readiness and family bonding.

TMC members on the Raising a Reader Committee: