Program areas at Book' Em
Books for nashville's kids provide books for children and teens in davidson county, who may not have books of their own, by giving books to more than 100 schools, nonprofits, government agencies and faith-based organizations that serve low-income families. These organizations give the books to the children and/or teens that they serve to take home. Most of the books in our books for nashville's kids program are donated to book'em through year-round book drives and book donations from individuals, community groups, publishers and businesses. Some books are purchased at very discounted prices. In 2020, Book' Em provided more than 134,000 books and 220 reading rolemodels to benefit children ages 0-18 living in low-income households in nashville, davidson county, tn. Through our work, we want to motivate and encourage youth to develop stronger literacy skills and a love of reading.
Ready for reading places reading volunteers in local preschools and elementary schools. These reading volunteers act as reading role models and read on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to small groups of children or on a one-on-one basis. The frequent schedule allows the students to get to know the volunteers well and anticipate their visits with much excitement. In 2018-19, this program continued at cambridge early learning center and ross early learning center. During the pandemic, this program was put on hold as students were not in school or volunteers were not allowed in schools.
Reading is fundamental volunteers visit their assigned elementary classroom five times or more throughout the school year. During these visits, the volunteers read aloud to and interact with the children, then allow each child to select a new book to become their very own. These economically disadvantaged elementary children benefit greatly from having a positive community role model visit them in their classrooms and having books to cherish and build their home libraries. During 2018-2019, 210 rif volunteers visited with 4,288 students in 213 classrooms at seventeen schools and distributed more than 21,000 books. During the pandemic, volunteers created read aloud videos and read to their classrooms virtually. All students at our rif schools received books.
Read me day is an annual event highlighting the importance and fun of reading.