Every year, Indigo, Chapters, and Coles spend three weeks helping to fill school libraries with books.
Their massive annual undertaking, called the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation Adopt a School program, aims to fill the libraries of high-needs elementary schools with reading material. Anything that’s needed, from textbooks to non-fiction to novels. But it’s the fiction stuff that has us most excited, because (let’s be real) those are the books that make kids fall in love with reading. Think beloved, popular books that get them excited and, hopefully, turn them into life-long readers. Think: Harry Potter. Silverwing. Charlotte’s Web. Chronicles of Narnia. All of the Munsch. And so many more.
This year, between September 18 and October 9, the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation Adopt a School Program provided over 81,000 books to more than 500 Canadian elementary schools. Some were ‘adopted’ by their local Indigo, Chapters, or Coles store, and all schools had the opportunity to fundraise online at adoptaschool.indigo.ca. The stores that adopted schools in local communities across Canada donated 100% of the funds raised in-store to their chosen schools. And as the cherry on top, all schools also received a 30 percent discount to purchase books and educational resources when using these funds.
Additionally, this year the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation started the ‘Book Bonus’—a matching program for online donations. For every $20 donated to a school (equivalent value of two books), the Foundation donated a third book to that school for free.
The Foundation also encouraged communities to support literacy through non-monetary means with a ‘Tell a Story, Give a Story’ incentive, where supporters could share a short story on the online profile of a participating school. If that story was selected to be featured on the Adopt a School website, the Foundation donated a book to that school’s library for free. Hundreds of stories were shared by people of all ages across Canada, including stories about favourite books, librarians who made a difference, and how a love for books and reading has impacted their lives. They’re worth checking out.
Since the program began 7 years ago, the annual Adopt a School campaign has raised over $4.5 million to support more than 2,500 Canadian high-needs elementary schools. By providing over 400,000 books to-date, the campaign has impacted more than 800,000 students across the country.
400,000 books. We like to think that’s 400,000 times a kid was given the chance to fall in love with reading.
And we can’t wait to see what Indigo will do next year.
This post was brought to you by Indigo Love of Reading Foundation but the opinions are our own.
Tagged under: books,reading,family,Library,kids,readers,school,love of reading,chapters,indigo,book,library book,cole's,learn to read
Category: books
