BALTIMORE, md. — Friday, January 29th marks the end of National News Literacy Week. WMAR has been celebrting with the 4th Annual Scripps Howard Foundation's "If You Give A Child A Book" Campaign.
WMAR-2 News teamed up with Fulton Bank this year to put brand new books into hands of children in Baltimore City and Harford County. That's to your generosity and our very own employee donations we raised enough money to buy nearly 8,000 books. They were given away this week to students at Deerfield Elementary in Edgewood and at the Belair-Edison School in Baltimore.
Due to the book drive's tremendous success, we also made a donation to the Maryland Book Bank. With the financial donation, the book bank was able to purchase 2,000 books. They focused on getting books that show diversity and show different races, so kids can see people who look like them. 89% of the people they serve in Baltimore City are children of color.
Typically, the book bank just gets book donations so this was one of the few times they were able to purchase their own books and meet kids specific needs for their story kits.
Because of Covid-19, the Maryland Book Bank hasn't been able to use their Ravens book mobiles or have families come directly into the facility to pick out their own books so they created story kits. If you live in Baltimore City you can request a story kit to be delivered directly to your home. Just head over to MDBookBank.org. If you're a teacher and want books for your school, you can request an educator box to pick up at the book bank.
