Research shows that reading for pleasure can do many things: promote better health and wellbeing, help to build social connections and relationships with others and of course, aid learning.
Children’s reading for pleasure is threatened … as many children do not have books of their own; there are many reasons for this.
For the last 5 years Cannock Soroptimists have been actively supporting Rotary Books4Home. This is a project run by Rotary Alumni 1210 working throughout Staffordshire, Shropshire and The Black Country. Rotary Books4Home works with schools to gift pre-read books to children. The youngsters choose a book, take it home, read it, enjoy sharing with their family and friends and many for the first time, get to keep a book of their very own forever.
From time to time, the Soroptimists run a community campaign in order to boost the stock held by Books4Home and they are always overwhelmed by the generosity shown.
This campaign has been no different – over the two weeks in July children sorted through their books, deciding which they no longer needed and which could be donated to other children – sharing the pleasure of reading a book. Many schools going through their libraries at the end of term saved books no longer needed for Soroptimists to collect; Libraries and Hair Salons had donation boxes.
Once all of the books were collected, Soroptimists sorted and labelled them according to type – fiction, non-fiction, hard back, paperback etc and then delivered them to the RB4H Team so that they can begin to prepare for the requests coming in before the start of a new term.
Cannock Soroptimists and Rotary Books4Home were absolutely delighted at the donation of
4,116 pre-loved children’s books
More children in Staffordshire, Shropshire and West Midlands will now have the opportunity to read, enjoy and own books – to everyone who donated a book: THANK YOU!
- Back row l to r: Soroptimists Jackie Prince; Trish Mellor; middle row, standing: l to r: Soroptimists Jill Mason; June Bould; Caryn Hewitt; Denise Foster;Front, seated: Beverley Ricketts
