More than 31,000 books will be in the hands of Barrow County children thanks to the teamwork of the Barrow Literacy Partnership, Barrow Area Rotary Members, community volunteers, and Barrow County School System (BCSS) staff members. They spent two days packing 877 bags with 35 books each and then delivered them to childcare facilities and BCSS Pre-K and PREP classes. It’s all to promote early literacy for our county’s youngest children.

BACKGROUND BOOK PROJECT:

BCSS School and Community Relations Coordinator Ellen Petree is co-chair of the Barrow Literacy Partnership (BLP) with Beth McIntyre, Piedmont Regional Library System Director. She says, “BLP has a dual approach to literacy where we ‘give them a fish’ books to keep in their home library and then also ‘teach them where to fish’ at their local library. This promotes reading for a lifetime for the whole family.”

The Frog Street Bags are meant for student home libraries and include BLP early literacy information and information about our libraries in Auburn, Statham, and Winder. Frog Street provides a comprehensive curriculum to meet the needs of Georgia early childhood educators. 

Books were purchased and provided again this year using Dr. Beth McMichael’s L4GA Grant funds for early literacy.

Special thank you to Margrette Bailey, Erika Adkinson-Smith, and Beth McIntyre for organizing the “packing parties.” Additionally, Margrette Bailey, Sandy Bush, Leslie Peek, and Lydia Huff made deliveries to all the daycares and Randy Norris of BCSS delivered to all the school Pre-K and PREP classes.

THE BOOKS - BY THE NUMBERS:

The books will be given to 173 BCSS PREP students and 412 BCSS Pre-K students, and all six of Barrow’s state-funded Pre-K students in partner daycares. That is a total of 30,695 books!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:

More than 550 children ages birth to 4 years old in partner daycares will receive two age-appropriate books each along with BLP early literacy information. Those books were delivered to Early Head Start, Barrow Head Start, Winder Head Start, Cadence Academy, Castial Academy, Discovery Point, Learn-N-Play, Sikes Rocking Horse Ranch, and Tender Years Learning Center.

In summary, that means 1,429 of Barrow’s youngest children have been given a total of 31,831 books for their home libraries!

Mrs. Petree says, “Having these important tools for reading, coupled with time spent with loved ones reading them, is the key to success!”