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PHI KAPPA PHI HOLDS CHILDREN'S BOOK DRIVE AT LOCK HAVEN UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
What do dinosaurs and Halloween and Winnie the Pooh have in common? All were topics of children's books that Phi Kappa Phi collected during the Children's Book Drive during the month of October, 2006. In an attempt to boost Phi Kappa Phi recognition on campus and promote literacy, PKP began organizing this event in August. In the buzz preceding a planned Book Bingo at the Clinton County Housing Authority, efforts were coordinated with the student vice presidents and members of the Elementary Education Children's Literature class to make Book Labels to put in every book, create attractive flyers to advertise the event, make BINGO cards, prize slips, collection boxes, and weekly email reminders to the campus. After the first week, 100 books were collected from the nine sites on campus, with requests to add two more sites, including the administrative building! Week two yielded another 100 books as faculty/staff requested students to come to their offices to pick up donations. By week three, we reached 300 books, and there was still a week to go! Week 4 took place during Family Weekend, and now we had students requesting we come to their dorm rooms to pick up boxes of books their parents had brought to campus for our Book Drive! On October 31st, with barely an open path to my office desk, we reached 500 books!...all donated by the very generous and gracious faculty, staff, and students on the Lock Haven University campus!
And these were not just gently used Children's Books. Many were brand new; we had to take the plastic wrap off to put a PKP label on them! There were board, chapter, coloring, activity, informational, joke, pop-up, and picture books....Newberry Award and Caldecott winners......classics and Pokemon books! The response was so overwhelming, we were not only able to give away 300 books to the children from the Housing Authority, but we were able to donate books to the Clinton County "Shoe" Project that provides new shoes and a book to underprivileged children, The Lock Haven Child Care Center, Lock Haven Hospital waiting rooms for children, and the Lycoming County Court House waiting rooms for children who must testify in court.
Although it was a l-o-n-g month, including our Fall 2006 initiation, the smiles of the children and adults receiving these books were enough to touch and encourage our hearts that kids tonight might be curling up in a chair or in a parent's lap to read a book rather than turn on a television. Promoting Literacy is worth the effort! --By Kathy Richards, President Phi Kappa Phi Chapter #179
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