Thank you to Wintrust Community Banks for your support!
They’re collecting 100,000 books this summer!
Click here to read about it: Wintrust Book Drive
Watch our video to understand why books matter to the children we serve.
BERNIE’S BOOK BANK “DISTRIBUTION” from BOTTLE ROCKET MEDIA on Vimeo.
To share this video, click play. There is a share button in the upper right hand corner of screen.
Reading is the single most important skill a child needs to learn. Yet studies show that 61% of low-income families don’t have any books at all in their homes for their children.*
Bernie’s Book Bank aims to change that statistic by pouring quality children’s books into “at-risk” homes, ensuring that children have access to books from birth, and arrive to school “reading ready.”
Bernie’s Book Bank is the logistical bridge between where books are today, and are no longer being used, to where they are not, but are desperately needed. We do three things exceptionally well: we collect hundreds of thousands of new and gently used books; we process them into collections of six age-appropriate and leveled books; and we deliver them directly into the hands of low-income children who have none of their own.
With a sense of urgency and professionalism, we’ve taken the guesswork out of what to do with outgrown children’s books.
Why is reading readiness important? Because millions of children show up to the first day of kindergarten never having seen a book before in their lives. Through no fault of their own, they begin school four years behind. We then spend millions per year on reading intervention programs trying to catch them up. Of those who don’t catch up and cannot read proficiently by 4th grade, a full two-thirds will end up in jail or on welfare.**
Bernie’s Book Bank is changing that trajectory today for more than 70,000 children in Chicago and its suburbs. Each child we serve receives a minimum of 12 books per year from us. The books are theirs to keep at home forever.
As our community’s children’s book bank, and a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization, we rely on donations of books, volunteers and funding! We will distribute 1 million books per year in the Chicago area by 2013, to grow to serve every at-risk child in Chicagoland, and then to expand to other major cities in America.
Thank you for helping us Connect Children Needing Books with Books Needing Children!
Bernie’s Book Bank is a registered 501(c)3 organization (EIN 27-0914453)
* Reading Literacy in the United States, 1996
** BegintoRead.com
Copyright (R) 2012 Bernie’s Book Bank
