Make summer a season of learning!
United Way of Champaign County is hosting a Children’s Book Drive on June 26, 2015 at our office in Champaign, Illinois. Your family’s gently used children’s books can find a second home. This effort is part of Day of Action, a nationwide event to put the United Way mission into action.
“Day of Action is a chance for us to make a big impact in our community in just one day,” remarked Sue Grey, President & CEO. For this year’s event, United Way is focusing on preventing summer learning loss. “Study after study has shown that kids who are given the opportunity to read over the summer months do better in school come fall.” According to the National Summer Learning Association, kids can lose one to three months of academic growth over the summer.
We encourage the community to donate new or gently used children’s books on Friday, June 26, 2015 from 8am-6pm at the United Way office, 404 W Church St, Champaign. A team of volunteers will be on hand to collect and organize the books. A number of United Way partner businesses have committed to hosting book drives in their offices.
United Way hopes the whole community will participate in any way possible. Whether that’s by hosting book drives in their offices, neighborhoods, and book clubs, going through your family’s bookshelf, or volunteering for the event, there’s a chance for everyone to be involved. United Way has an online toolkit available at www.uwayhelps.org/DayOfAction for anyone who wishes to host their own book drive.
United Way will accept new and gently used children’s books from the following categories:
- Board books
- Picture books
- Early Readers/Chapter books
- Young Adult
The most exciting part of Day of Action? “The books will be going out our door the very same day! United Way’s nonprofit partners already do such a great job of connecting with kids in the community, so we want them to distribute the books and use them to support their programming,” Sue said.
For more information, please visit the Day of Action website: www.uwayhelps.org/DayOfAction