Donovan Patton poses with a group of kids showing off their new books.

Recently, First Book joined Nickelodeon, JetBlue Airways and Candlewick Press to host a celebratory event for the children in the Head Start program at the Long Beach School for Adults to announce Long Beach at the winning community to receive 50,000 new books from the Jet Back to School with Blue campaign. Donovan Patton, “Joe” from Nick Jr.’s Blue’s Clues, and Barney Saltzberg, Candlewick Press children’s book author, were on hand to read to the children and celebrate the donation.

In addition to the distribution to the Long Beach community, Candlewick Press, which is currently celebrating its 15th anniversary, also donated 15,000 books to each of the other seven Jet Blue communities that participated in the Jet Back to School with Blue campaign. Books were distributed to literacy programs throughout Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Washington, D.C., New York City, Newark, NJ, Oakland/San Francisco, and Orlando to bring the total number of books distributed through the campaign to 155,000!

Now that’s something to celebrate! To view photos from the event, please visit First Book’s Flickr page.