"Book in Every Home" needs more kids books |
Elizabeth Grimsley |
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SIUE community members can continue to donate books to the "Book in Every Home" campaign even though the official deadline has passed. Kay Werner, academic computing manager and head of the campaign, said the deadline was extended to March 30 because the original campaign came up 500 books short. "We know that we've already reached our goal because just after the deadline was extended, a very large donation was given by a junior high school in Belleville," she said. The school took on the collection of books as a project and turned in 2,098 books, though Werner said some of the books are not "gently used" or age appropriate and cannot be distributed. "They (the junior high school) called and told us that they had 500 books to give to us, and when we went to pick them up, they had 2,098, so it was really exciting," Werner said. The campaign also accepted monetary donations. Werner and other committee members made a trip to St. Louis to buy age-appropriate books Monday. Wood River Printing & Publishing agreed to print all the promotional material for the campaign free of charge. The original campaign ran from Feb. 5 to March 3 with the hope of collecting 3,000 books. The objective of the program was to distribute donated books to St. Clair and Madison counties' Head Start programs that serve roughly 2,500 children, as well as the Child Development Center in East St. Louis and the Discovery Depot and Early Childhood Center on the SIUE campus. "Many of the children served by the East St. Louis center and the Early Childhood Center are children of students, and the families are potentially of limited income," Werner said. She said the deadline has only been extended to the SIUE community and not the public. Donations of books or money can be dropped off in the office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs through March 30. Werner said checks should be made payable to the SIUE Foundation with a memo to the "Book in Every Home" campaign. | |