The First Book team just got back from Brattleboro, Vermont, where we distributed 350,000 brand-new books to kids in need. About 100,000 of those books went to local teachers and community leaders, and the rest were shipped out to schools and programs serving kids from low-income families across the country.
The books were donated by our friends at Disney Publishing Worldwide, and included quite a few fairy and princess titles.
“There were four of us, and we worked, worked, and worked,” said Katie Niersbach, who led the team in Vermont. “Fairy books are HEAVY.”
The distribution was made possible thanks to the support of the Vermont Foodbank, who provided warehouse space and volunteers, and also received a large number of books to distribute to the children served by their centers throughout the state.
Also richly-deserving of our thanks is Carolyn Appleton, a Vermont teacher and community activist who signed up over 80 new programs to help them get books from First Book and fed our staff and volunteers ice cream. (She’s also the mother of one of our staffers, but that only makes us love her more.)
So a big ‘thank you’ to Carolyn and to all our friends at Disney and the Vermont Foodbank, and an even bigger thanks to all the educators – in Vermont and everywhere else – who go the extra mile every day to turn their kids into readers.