Written by Brian Minter
That’s right. Thanks to everyone who donated to First Book over the holiday season – and thanks to a generous matching offer from our friends at Disney – First Book was able to provide 213,802 brand-new, high-quality books to schools and programs serving children from low-income families across the country.
Thanks to all our supporters who helped make this happen!
Written by Gina Rullo
Santa may have been busy this holiday season but that didn’t stop him from visiting Los Molinos Unified School District to deliver books to many kids.
Students from Los Molinos Elementary School and four other schools in the Northern California area all participated in a yearly breakfast with Santa event. In past years, students received little gifts from Santa and his elves. This year, students received the gift of reading.
Los Molinos Unified School District is an area where 85% of students are on free and reduced lunch and are Title I. This is an area where most families live in extreme poverty so getting books to give out at this event seemed challenging. That’s when Los Molinos turned to First Book. Since books are available at such affordable prices, students from five different elementary schools all took home brand-new books to call their own.
“Parents, teachers and children could not believe that Santa would bring them such a gift”, said Jill Botts, LMUSD Board of Trustees President.
Holiday cheer was spread to many children this year as they turned through the pages of their new books with much spirit this season.
Anyone who works with kids in need is eligible to get books from First Book. To sign up, visit First Book on the web.
Written by Brian Minter
Together, we’ve put over 100 million new books into the hands of children who need them, and we’re counting on your support this holiday season. This year, thanks to our friends at Disney, the impact of your gift will be tripled!
Every $2.50 donated to First Book provides one brand-new, high-quality book for a child from a low-income family. And Disney has agreed to match every one of those books with two additional books, from now through the end of the year. Click here to donate.
As always, when you donate to First Book, you can be sure your money is being used wisely; 97% of donations to First Book go directly to provide new, high-quality books to kids in need. (That’s how we won our four-star rating from Charity Navigator.)
Thanks for being part of our work, and happy holidays from everyone at First Book!
Written by Brian Minter
What to give your favorite aunt (or anyone else) for Christmas? Fruit cake? A reindeer scarf? Those mittens that are attached together with yarn?
How about the gift of reading to kids in need, in her name?
That’s right, every $2.50 you donate provides a brand-new, high-quality book for a child from a low-income family. Your favorite aunt will love it. and you can let her know with one of these snazzy e-cards:
Written by Brian Minter
First Book distributed eight million brand-new books to kids in need this year. That’s a LOT of books, and those books have the power to change a lot of lives.
And, with your help, we want to do even more in the year to come!
Donate now to provide new books to kids in need through First Book
Every $2.50 you donate goes to provide a brand-new book to a kid in need, helping them become a reader and changing their life. And your impact will go even further this year – through Dec. 31, our friends at Disney Publishing Worldwide will match every $1 donated with another new book. Pretty great stuff.
Thanks to all of you for your continued support of First Book and the children who are counting on us.
Written by Brian Minter
We have been offering some holiday shopping suggestions for you on our blog this week. But it’s Christmas Eve, and we are all out of gift ideas. If you are considering one last trip to the mall, take a moment and ask yourself: Do my friends and family need more stuff? They probably don’t. Stay inside and watch ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ with your cousins.
If you are still in the gift-giving spirit, though, you can always contribute to First Book. We’ve been fortunate this holiday season (thanks in no small part to Nicholas Kristof’s recent column), but we can always use your help with our mission of getting brand-new books into the hands of kids from low-income communities. And every dollar donated through the end of the year will be matched with an extra book from our generous publishing partners.
Happy holidays from your friends at First Book! We hope you get a good book this Christmas.
Written by Brian Minter
A proper Christmas holiday will include dozens, if not hundreds, of trips to the grocery store. Since you’ll be in the cereal aisle at some point, make sure you pick up a specially-marked box of Cheerios – part of a nutritious breakfast, crucial for making holiday Chex mix, and also a great way to support First Book and get a brand-new book.
Through its Spoonfuls of Stories® program, Cheerios® cereal is currently providing more than six million children’s books (in both English and Spanish) free inside Cheerios® boxes. Since Spoonfuls of Stories’ inception in 2001, Cheerios has donated more than $3.5 million to First Book and distributed almost 50 million children’s books inside boxes.
This year’s book offerings, appropriate for children ages three to eight and all from Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing:
Actress and mother of three Jennie Garth has joined forces with Spoonfuls of Stories to celebrate the ninth year of the program and to discuss why she feels it is so important to find time to read to with her own kids every day.
“As a mother of three inquisitive daughters, I know how important it is to take time out of our busy lives to read to our children on a daily basis and to instill this important ritual at a young age,” said Garth. “That’s why I’m thrilled to be a part of an initiative aiming to provide millions of families with access to wonderful children’s books and encouraging families to read together.”
To learn more about the program, this year’s in-pack books or to donate to First Book, visit www.spoonfulsofstories.com.
Written by Brian Minter
The snow continues to fall – sporadically, anyway – and your friends at First Book continue with our list of gift ideas for the thoughtful last-minute shopper.
Today’s offer comes from Direct Brands, who brought us the Book-of-the-Month Club, and are now offering the Children’s Classics Collection – a new classic work of children’s literature in the mail each month for a special small person in your life.
First Book gets a $1 donation for each book in the series. So if you get the 12-month offer as a gift for a young reader, Direct Brands will donate $12 to First Book – which we will use to get more books into the hands of kids that need them. Frankly, it’s hard to see the downside.
To learn more about, check out this video by our friend Soleil Moon Frye – children’s issues activist and beloved 80′s TV hero.
Written by Brian Minter
It’s snowing outside the First Book offices in downtown Washington DC today, which is a lovely reminder that the holiday season is nearly upon us. It is also a stressful reminder, since very few of us have done much Christmas shopping yet.
Fortunately, your friends at First Book have all kinds of great holiday gift ideas that do not involve you wrestling with desperate crowds of last-minute shoppers, and we’ll be sharing them with you from now until Christmas.
First up … a great offer from our friends at Target.
Without spending a penny, you can give the gift of reading to kids from low-income communities. Visit Target’s Facebook page and click on the Give Joy tab. Then put together your own wish list online and submit it. You’ll be automatically entered in a drawing for the chance to receive the items on your wish list, and – more importantly – for each list submitted, Target will donate $5 to First Book.
There are only two days left in this campaign, so get a move on!
And, after you build your wish list, don’t forget to take the Target Read With MeSM pledge to read with a child. Target Read With MeSM is an initiative aimed at helping more U.S. children read proficiently by the end of third grade. Target and First Book are calling on parents and caring adults to pledge to read with a child by visiting www.target.com/reading or texting READ to TARGET (827438).
For every pledge received, Target and First Book will donate a book to children in need, up to one million books!
A few years ago I decided to read only holiday-themed books for the month of December. I had so much fun that it’s now one of my annual holiday traditions. There must be a lot of people out there who share in my tradition because every December I find myself fighting for my place in line on the library waiting lists.
I mostly prefer the holiday mysteries such as those by Mary Higgins Clark, Anne Perry and dozens of others. The best is when they combine mystery and food such as Joanna Fluke and Dianne Mott Davidson. I’m also a sap for a good heart-warming story such as The Christmas Shoes and the holiday books in the Cape Light series by Thomas Kinkade. I’ve also read some good comedies and last year I found a holiday/vampire novel that I strangely enjoyed.
So far this December, I’ve read The Christmas Secret, A Wish For Christmas, Dashing Through the Snow and Engaging Father Christmas (which had me sheading tears on the metro yesterday). Up next are The Christmas Cookie Club and Plum Pudding Murder.
So, fellow holiday readers, what else should I put on my reading list this year?
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