Wrapping up our #NickCFK Book Drive - Still Time to Get Involved

Last week I shared my family's love of reading and our September Simple Service Project to collect books for a local Big Help Book Drive in my #NickCFK post. This stack of books represents most of the stories we collected for our local Head Start program.

Since the Head Start program is for children ages 3-5, which is the same ages of my own children, I had them help me select books for the donation. Who better to help with this project than peers. Of course my children love the Nickelodeon characters so they selected several books featuring Dora, Olivia, Team Umizumi, The Bubble Guppies and Blues Clues. My husband and I read to our children every night and I can't imagine a home not filled with books for young, eager minds.

This is a great month to participate with Champions for Kids. They want to get regular people involved to be one of millions to meet their goal of 20 million people participating in Simple Service Projects by 2020. Could you imagine the good that could come of that many people helping others? Helping their communities? I am proud to be one of millions and I hope I am setting a great example for my children to continue on with projects like this.

Since the last post, my order from Walmart.com arrived with even more great Nickelodeon books to add to the donation pile. I have to tell you, the stack grew quickly from the books we purchased at the start (Check out my Google+ album HERE), the books we donated from our own stash and books that were sent or given to me as a donation. So many great stories to be shared with young readers in our community.

What I have always loved about books is that great stories can be shared. Even worn and tattered books come alive at bedtime or story time for young readers. I have fond memories of my own Mother reading me well-worn books passed down in the family. Some of my favorites included Dr. Seuss stories. Told again and again, they only seemed to get better with each reading.

Head Start costs nothing for qualifying families. The goal is to get children ready to learn and succeed in school. I thought this Big Help Book Drive was the perfect fit because they both are trying to help low-income students succeed.

So simple, isn't it?

So simple I hope you will be encouraged to collect books for children in your community. How many can you collect? And where would you donate your books?

In the end we had 63 books for young children. Many were favorites of ours, some new, but I am sure all will be loved and appreciated. Every book can help, so let's all get involved and make sure there are books available for everyone.

Check out the Champions for Kids site for suggestions and inspiration. Be sure to help out their goal by letting them know if you donate books. Also follow them on Twitter and Facebook to see all the good being done.

Also check out their partner, Nickelodeon on Twitter and Facebook because their beloved characters go a long way to inspire children to read their stories.

Now what are you waiting for? Go see how many books you can collect!

*Disclaimer - I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #NickCFK #CBias. All opinions are entirely my own.

Preparing to Share the Love - Our #NickCFK Book Drive

Every night around 8pm, you can find our family curled up around a book. It is a tradition we began with the kids when my son was small and could barely sit still long enough for me to get through a page.

Though the seeds for this tradition were planted way back when I was expecting. Family and friends gifted me with several lovely stories to start our collection before he was even born. Every year since on birthdays the great grandparents add to our collection and I am always on the search for new titles to add as well. You could say we place a great value on reading and books in our home.

Did you know:

• 61% of low-income families have no books for children in their homes, and more than 80% of the preschool and after-school programs serving at-risk children have no books at all. 
• Approximately 8.7 million fourth through twelfth grade students struggle with required reading and writing tasks in school. For many adolescent students, ongoing difficulties with reading and writing figure prominently in the decision to drop out of school.  

So here is September's SIMPLE Service Project:

I am so excited to be working with Champions for Kids again through #CBias. This month is an amazing cause and such a simple one to get involved with. Nickelodeon's Big Help Book Drive (#NickCFK)  is a call to action for people in communities across the country to help get books into the hands of young readers.

This project is in two parts. I took my family to our local Walmart to purchase several Nickelodeon books to start my book drive with. I loaded up my family and asked my children to help choose books to give away. My children have several favorite Nickelodeon characters, so I knew this would be easy!

Before shopping I check both the Champions for Kids site and Walmart.com to get an idea of what I needed to pick up. Our store listed a huge selection of books in-store. But when we arrived at our local Walmart there were many fewer titles on the shelves.

My kids were looking for their favorite faces and we went through the stacks of books. There were some other great titles available, too. Even some classics that are already on our own shelves.

Check out our complete shopping trip in my Google+ album. We did find a few Dora books and one about my daughter's favorite, Olivia. I remembered all the fun titles I saw on the site and wanted to add a few more to our collection pile.

If you have ever shopped on Walmart's site you know how many great options there are. I immediately thought of their Site to store option for some of the books I wanted. After checking arrival estimates, I went with the home shipping option. I was able to get 6 more books that will arrive before we make our final donation. 

The prices at Walmart were great! If you want to host your own book drive or make a donation to a worthy group in your area, be sure to check out the great prices and selection there. Most of the books I purchased were just over $3 each. 

So that is a total of 10 books to begin our project with. The kids and I are going to be going through their own shelves to select books to donate and I have already had a great response from our friends wanting to get involved as well.

I can't wait to see how many books we can collect and donate to our local Head Start Program. Our small rural community has a large number of children who qualify for added assistance in education, health care and social services.  I hope all these extra books will help those Pre-school and Kindergarten aged children discover a love of learning, reading and the value of enjoying a good book.

Connect with Champions for Kids on Facebook or through their twitter handle: @champions4kids
Connect with Nickelodeon on Facebook or through their twitter handle: @nickelodeontv

Does your family have any extra books your could donate? What local group would you donate to for a Big Help Book Drive? Share in the comments below. I would love to hear about anyone inspired to do their own SIMPLE Service Project this month. Remember, you could be one of millions to help CFK meet their goal of 20 million people by 2020!

*Disclaimer - I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #NickCFK #CBias. All opinions are my own.