Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

(See: Hawaii kids win 50,000 new books)

Let’s see, making some assumptions about how wide children’s books are, 50,000 of them laid side-by-side should be about 6.7 miles of books. If they arrived at Honolulu Airport, and we began lining them up along the H-1 center line, they’d make it all the way to the Punahou exit and up the ramp to the entrance to Shriner’s hospital.

Or, you could lay them once around Kapiolani Park and have enough to go around Diamond Head as well.

That’s a lot of books.

Information is still coming in on how this will work. For those organizations interested in receiving books, which seems to include Title 1 schools, perhaps charter schools, and other organizations, here is an email from Cindy Morita, First Book-Oahu Chairperson:

IMPORTANT UPDATE. Here is more information that was just posted on the first book national site regarding how to register for the books from the campaign. (Please see firstbook.org for more information.)

The books that will be distributed in Hawaii will be done through the First Book National Book Bank, and eligible groups in Hawaii who are registered with First Book will have exclusive access.

First Book is a nonprofit organization that provides new books to children in need addressing one of the most important factors affecting literacy - access to books. Since 1992, First Book has distributed over 60 million new books to programs nationwide. There are an estimated 300,000 programs serving disadvantaged children. It is our goal to provide access to free and low-cost resources to these programs. If you have not done so already and you represent an eligible group, you must register your program at www.firstbook.org/register. Online registration takes only minutes and will connect your school or program immediately with the First Book National Book Bank and the First Book Marketplace.

Before the distribution, we will contact you with further instructions about how to apply for the books. For further information about the distribution process, please visit the Getting Started Section under the Book Bank category in the Help Center.

Mahalo,
Cindy Morita
First Book-Oahu Chairperson

If you a twitterer, you could subscribe to their tweet, @FirstBookOahu, though it’s been pretty quiet since Hawaii won the contest. Perhaps they’ll continue with distribution news (hint).

In the meantime, if you know a school or organization that might qualify to receive books, why not pass on the word. This is a great opportunity to get books into the hands of our children.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 10/05/2009 10:30:00 AM