Speaking Volumes
"I brought in the pelican book!" said Molly Moses, a seventh grader at Butler Catholic School, her eyes alighting on a bird-shaped book poking up through the pile in a laundry basket.
Molly is among a group of students at Butler Catholic School on Locust Avenue, and the book is among those they collected for distribution by Family Services of Butler Memorial Hospital.
The students have already collected more than 200 new and gently used books toward the drive, a service project of the Butler Reading Council, an affiliate of the International Reading Association and the Keystone State Reading Association.
All Butler Catholic grades from preschool through eighth have collected books so far, but it's an ongoing project, continuing through Jan. 30. That's when the reading council will meet, spread all the books out on tables, and begin the categorization process before transporting the books to Family First Resource Center on Washington Street.
Karen Zapp, coordinator of the family literacy program for Family Services of BMH, said the books in turn are given to anyone in the family literacy program or adult education classes, or anyone who comes to Family Services.
"We give them out at home visitations, prenatal support and family literacy visits," Zapp said.
For families with children up to age 7, Family Services will go into the home and do literacy activities with the children, Zapp said.
Often the adults of the house are attending free education classes about topics such as parenting skills or child development at Family Services, which receives funding from the state Department of Education
Kathy Leone, a member of the Butler council's board of directors and a longtime teacher at Butler Catholic, said the Butler Reading Council has about 45 members.
"We're all educators, mostly reading and English teachers, librarians," she said. The group was kind of silent in the past but in the last 10 years has become more active, she said. This project is one of the ways the group endeavors to share reading with the community.
"All of the members with their school affiliations get books together for this," Leone said. "Some of the members who are retired go through their own book collections and give some of those."
At Butler Catholic, the project lends itself to January's theme "Lend a Hand," one of the different habits practiced each month as spelled out in "Join the Golden Rule Revolution" by Elaine Parke.
Books for all ages, even grown-ups, are being accepted. The donations should be in proper condition for someone else to own them.
"We really look at the condition of them, and then we separate them into categories, so that when the Family Services people want to use them, they're in boxes in reading age groups," Leone said.
Zapp said the donated books attract kids as well as their parents.
"Moms bring their kids in here for play therapy," Zapp said. "They'll be looking at the books while they're waiting in the lobby."
None of that would be possible without a concerted effort from the Butler County community, she added.
"We've gotten hundreds, nearly a thousand every year I think, through the Butler Reading Council, and we use them," Zapp said.
To donate new or gently used books, drop them off at Butler Catholic School, 515 E. Locust St., through Jan. 30. For more information about family literacy services, call Family First at 724-284-4894.
