Today we donated our books we collect from family, friends, neighbors and publishing companies for our Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive Simple Service Project. I was so happy with all the donations we were able to collect. I am thankfully to everyone that helped support our book drive. Knowing that 61% of low-income families have no books for children in their homes inspired me to need to get books to those kids. Reading in my home is a treasured activity that we enjoy as a family. I want all kids to be able to sit down with a book and get lost in the adventure they are reading. Reading encourages learning, creativity and bonding time with your kids. Encourage your kids to read to you, siblings, family members or even their pets!
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| All the great books we will donate |
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| We wrapped our book donation and added some colorful stuffing to make it a nice present. |
My son and I packaged up all the wonderful books we planned to donate and headed to Roseville Home Start. I selected Roseville Home Start to receive our Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive Donation because many of the children living at the program no longer have the items including books that they once did. The charity helps local families that have become homeless get back on their feet through job and education training and a temporary home. They provide a home for these families that have found themselves needing help. What touches me about this charity is that homelessness can happen to anyone. A lost job, then a foreclosure or eviction and you find your family homeless. I cannot imagine the stress of that. Having children going through this brings me to tears.
We are bring books and "this book belongs to" tags to the charity today to bring a little bit of joy to the kids that live there. I want the kids to know that the book is theirs to keep forever no matter where they live. My son loves to point out his name tags in his own books before we read them. Knowing its his since he name is on it makes him smile. I hope our book donation will bring a smile to the kids living here.
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| Roseville Home Start was once a hotel but was turned into a housing program. |
Today we were able to meet a few new people that worked at Home Start. They are always so nice about a donation and even sent us a thank you email.
On behalf of Roseville Home Start, thank you for your generous donation of children's books for the families at Home Start. As you know, we are a private, non-profit community based organization that relies heavily on community support. Since 1995, we have served thousands of homeless children and their families in Placer County and beyond. Thanks to donors like you, Roseville Home Start provided 56 families (114 children and 72 adults) in 2011 with a place to live, learn, and feel safe. Our community is a better place because you care.
This was so heart warming to read! I love the last line, we really do care and one person can make a difference. I had neighbors and companies help with my donation but had I not asked the books would not have been given. I love to see how people can come together to help kids!
I encourage all of you to participate in the Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive in your own communities and to report it on the Champions for Kids website. Together we can be the one of millions to help Champions for Kids meet their goal of helping 20 million people by 2020. It can be as simple as asking friends and family to help you by collecting gently used books. So many of us have kids or grandkids that have books they have outgrown that other kids would cherish. Or get together and have a donation jar for change for whatever money people have to spare for money to buy new books. You can participate by having community group or kids sports teams make a group donation of a few books too. There are so many ways each and everyone of us can find a way to help kids get the books they need. #NickCFK
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| My son was so sweet today. He told me We are taking books to the kidsies Mom. (He calls kids "kidsies) |
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| Thank you Roseville Home Start for all you do for the community |
A big thank you to Sylvan Dell Publishing and Zondervan Publishing for contributing books to the donation.
You can read more about the Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive in my blog post about the September Simple Service Project here. For more ideas on what types of books Walmart has to buy for your donation, including the awesome Bargain Bin you can read my Google+ Story.
*I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #NickCFK #CBias All opinions expressed in this post are my own.
