IC Gives the Gift of Reading

12/13/06

Ithaca College is pleased to contine our tradition of collecting NEW children's books at our faculty and staff holiday luncheon (Thursday, December 21st). We are proud to be a part of the Family Reading Partnership’s (FRP) ongoing efforts to create a culture of literacy in our local area.

Through this simple yet powerful act, we can help to ensure children’s books are a special part of the the routines and traditions of family life for all children in our community. We know that books increase in value when they are given as gifts, especially when they come as part of the holidays, and as gifts from a parent.

Give the Gift of Family Reading is a children’s book drive for the holidays, designed to provide beautiful new books for parents of low-income families to give to their children as holiday gifts.

Thanks to donations of books and funds through Ithaca College and other organizations and businesses in the community, during the holidays and through February Family Reading Partnership is able to place well over 1,000 books into the hands and homes of low-income families as holiday gifts for their children.

IC staff and faculty help the FRP to bring the joy of books into homes of some of the county’s most vulnerable families. It is truly a gift that will keep on giving as parent and child open the books and enjoy them together, again and again, throughout the year.

Almost 40 volunteers help with the book give-a-way and literacy intervention program during the months of December, January, and February, to ensure we reached all WIC families (Woman, Infants and Children) through their rotation at 11 WIC clinics. In addition, books were distributed through many community organizations that serve low-income families, including:

• Advocacy Shelter - Families from abusive home settings
• Catholic Charities – Share the Warmth families coming for free coats
• Eat Smart, New York – low-income families through Cooperative Extension
• Even Start – Newfield to rural low-literacy, low-income families
• Parkside Gardens – through low-income housing
• American Red Cross Holiday Party in conjunction with Loaves & Fishes
• American Red Cross Shelter Families through homeless shelter
• Tompkins Learning Partners to low-literacy families
• Ulysses Christmas Bureau - in Christmas Baskets for families

With the guidance of volunteers, it is wonderful to observe parents carefully select books for each child. The books are then carefully gift-wrapped so parents can present them as special gifts to their children. For many families who have few gifts for their children, the books become even more important and valued.

The FRP thanks the faculty and staff at IC for helping to plant thousands of seeds of literacy into our growing culture of literacy in Tompkins County and beyond!

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