–The Raising a Reader (RAR) committee of The Monday Club has launched a new program to further their mission of promoting childhood literacy and providing access to books for children. This new outreach will help provide books to more children, not just those who participate in the RAR program through their schools.
The plan is to collect “gently loved” children’s and young adult’s books (ages 0 – 18) from Monday Club members and from the community and deliver them to the SLO Food Bank to be distributed via a program called “Breakfast Bags.” These are drawstring backpacks given to youth under 18, which are filled with 3 weeks’ worth of shelf-stable, easy-to-prepare breakfast items and other resource material. The Food Bank works to distribute 9,900 of these bags per year to 40 sites. The Food Bank staff will put the donated books into the Breakfast Bags, ultimately getting them into the hearts and homes of children without access to books in their homes, and helpin