After completing my internship at First Book this summer, I was eager to start my junior year at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and share my new ideas and renewed enthusiasm for First Book with my fellow CAB members.

At our first meeting, we looked at our available resources and set the lofty, yet totally attainable, goal of granting 2000 books this semester. We also decided that we’d do a small-ish fundraiser so that we could grant books without worrying about completely depleting our resources.

After brainstorming several fundraising ideas, including “Bowling for Books” and a dance-off (ok, I was really the only one who wanted to do a dance-off…what can I say? I’d like to limbo for literacy!), we decided that we’d like to pursue a partnership with the local skating rink and hold a “Skating for Stories” event.

We got in touch with the director of the Geneva Recreation Department, and she was more than willing to help us out! The recreation department generously agreed to let people in to public skating time for half of the usual admission, with the other half going to First Book-Geneva! They also said they’d let us sell baked goods at the Hobart Hockey game that was right after public skating.

We thought it’d be good to partner up with another campus group to plan this event, so our campus’ Kappa Alpha Society helped us with publicity and recruiting people to come to Skating for Stories.

This past Saturday my fellow board members and I met at the skating rink to help with admission and ticketing and to thank all of our friends and fellow students who showed up to skate for stories! We also brought with us plenty of delicious baked goods (Brownies for Books!) that were sold by the end of the hockey game’s half time. Although Hobart ended up tying Oswego in overtime, First Book-Geneva was a clear winner! We raised $208 for First Book-Geneva and increased awareness of our work and the continued need for pro-literacy efforts in our community.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges First Book Supporters