Judith’s Reading Room a B&N 2020 Holiday Book Drive Charity

Dear Michael,
 
Thank you very, very much for naming Judith’s Reading Room the 2020 Holiday Book Drive charity for your Barnes & Noble store, located at Broadcasting Square, Wyomissing, PA.
 
Scott and I were amazed that in the first week of the drive, your generous patrons donated over 400 books to serve children with limited access to books!  We can’t imagine how many more books will be donated over the entire holiday season!!
 
These two pictures show how we got to work, immediately, to determine the exact perfect book for the exact perfect recipient organization!  Charmaine Tsosie, Navajo Nation in Chinle, AZ will receive a huge mix of books to add to her mobile library… Rev. Dr. Leoda Topps, Pastor AME Church, South Haven, MS will receive books featuring black children or written about African American people …. Chris McGilvery, Canyon, TX will receive elementary to middle school books….. Basarat Kazim, Lahore, Pakistan (currently visiting family in the USA) will receive the “ very early readers” for her to hand-carry in her luggage to Lahore, Pakistan … Dawn Bush, Casa Guadalupe, Allentown, PA will receive birth-to-five books for parents in the WIC program.
 
Including the packages with multiple books (we count each book as a separate book) we arrived at a grand total of 486 books with a cover price of $3,533.  
Again, Michael, thank you from all of us — and thank you in advance from all the children, all over the USA and the world for encouraging your patrons to donate books this holiday season.  Scott and I will be back as soon as you have another batch of books for us to pick up!
 
Cathy
@BNReadingPA 

Chinle Planting Hope “READ in Beauty”

Charmaine Tsosie, a 2020 Freedom Through Literacy Board Option Prize winner for her organization, Chinle Planting Hope received fantastic coverage in Navajo Times! The article is fascinating and makes Judith’s Reading Room so proud that Charmaine was selected for the 2020 Freedom Through Literacy Award.

Judith’s Reading is proud to offer new books for their “READ in Beauty ” effort. CPH hopes to raise startup costs of $204,570 through a combination of grants and private donations, according to its proposal. It’s an ambitious project for a small group of volunteers headed by a woman who’s also a mom, a student, and has a full-time job.

According to Arizona State Educational Reports, 67% of Chinle third-graders and 89% of high schoolers lack reading proficiency. The article goes into details how CPH addresses these issues.

Information: To donate, go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/chinle-quotread-in-beautyquot-bookmobile

Learn More about Charmaine’s organization …

2020 Freedom Through Literacy Award – Board Option Prize

Chinle Planting Hope Facebook Page

Navajo Times original Article

READ in Beauty Go Bookmobile Fund Me

Judith’s Reading Room’s mission is to enrich lives and societies by proactively encouraging Freedom Through Literacy. To date, the organization has fulfilled that mission by establishing 99 libraries in 21 countries with 128,000 books donated, valued at nearly $1.4 million dollars. The 100th Judith’s Reading Room library in Zimbabwe, previously scheduled to open in August 2020, has been delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Freedom Through Literacy Award was initiated in 2015 as the organization’s signature event. Including the 2020 winners, the organization will have disbursed $38,500 in prize money, honoring 36 individual champions of literacy in the United States, the Philippines, Bhutan, Pakistan, Rwanda, Cambodia, Mexico, Australia, Zimbabwe and Greece.

The 2021 FREEDOM THROUGH LITERACY AWARD APPLICATION WILL BE AVAILABLE ONLINE IN JANUARY

2020 FREEDOM THROUGH LITERACY AWARD CELEBRATION

2020 FREEDOM THROUGH LITERACY AWARD
Virtual Award Celebration – Sept. 26, 2020

BOARD OPTION PRIZES – 2020 Freedom Through Literacy

Board Option Prize – $500

Charmaine Tsosie, “Chinle Planting Hope”
Navajo Nation, Chinle, Arizona

 

Through her organization, Chinle Planting Hope, Charmaine Tsosie works tirelessly for her Diné (Navajo) community to
create educational opportunities for whole families. She and her team will establish a mobile library vibrant with adult and
children’s’ books to inspire inter-generational reading habits among families who currently do not have access to a brickand-mortar library in Chinle. We warmly honor Charmaine with a Board Option Award to accelerate her work on the
mobile library.
“Winning the award is such an honor to my community and me. It feels like the Navajo Nation is seen and heard.”
                                                                                                           -Charmaine Tsosie

Basarat Kazim, “Camel Library for Kech Balochistan”
Lahore, Pakistan

Bringing libraries to sparsely populated communities in Pakistan requires creativity. For Basarat Kazim, the solution wasn’t on four wheels, but four legs. Camels, outfitted with custom-made book pouches, will carry hundreds of books to the district of Kech Balochistan. This effort specifically focuses on young girls, who often don’t have opportunities to attend school in the district. We proudly award Basarat a Board Option Award to help establish the first-ever camel library.
“Your support provides opportunities to thousands of girls to access treasures untold!! May they find the keys to the locked doors that hold them back.”
                                                                     -BasaratKazim

UPDATES!

Books Purchased for Board Option Prize Winner, Charmaine Tsosie

Hello Erin, Charmaine and Amber,

Thank you so very much, Charmaine, for providing me with your “wish list” of book titles and some favorite authors to help you launch the Mobile Library for Chinle.  As you can imagine it was not easy to find all of them, but I did my very best thanks to the help of the Barnes & Noble manager who also made some fabulous recommendations.
 
Attached is the curated list of 63 books Judith’s Reading Room purchased yesterday based on your recommendations and input.  You will see that many of the books are Newbery Honor Books and John Newbery Medal winners.  I tried to get several books in series; I tried to get a good distribution of books:  boys/girls; younger kids/high school kids; graphic novels, too.  The total cost of the books was $640.  With our nonprofit discounts, the cost to Judith’s Reading Room was $504.  
 
Each book has a name plate identifying the book as having been donated by Judith’s Reading Room.  We have also enclosed 70 bookmarks.

 
On behalf of all of us with Judith’s Reading Room, once again please accept our sincere congratulations for winning one of the 2020 Board Option Prizes.  We look forward to working with you long into the future.
 
Best,
 
Cathy
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