Wouldn’t you like to make a difference in the life of a child? Or, better yet… Wouldn’t you like to make a difference in the lives of many children living in Jersey City?
With much expectation and enthusiasm, the children of Jersey City are invited each year to participate in the annual Jersey City Free Public Library Summer Reading Program, one of the most successful and rewarding programs the Library offers to the public. The program is offered in the Bonetti Children’s Room at the Main Library and in all library branches throughout the City, and includes children from public, charter, parochial and home-schooled children. The Bookmobile is also on hand to fill in any gaps at local parks, festivals, and summer schools sessions. This program attracts over 500 children each year, who collectively read over 2,000 books every summer!
This year, the New Jersey Statewide Summer Reading Program (SRP) theme is “One World, Many Stories” for children in grades K-5. Imagine all the wonderful places children can read about! The accompanying activities – crafts, movies, and participating in educational/recreational trips – punctuate the theme, while creating lifelong friendships in a safe environment. A separate program theme, “You are Here,” which is for young adults in grades 6-8 and up, is specially geared to bring in those hard-to-reach, “too old to read” young adults by offering them special performers, movies, trips and crafts, while encouraging them to read to the top of the charts!
The Library provides a warm, supervised and welcoming environment, surrounded by their peers, where they can listen to, discuss and read books on topics they select, and the program encourages continued reading independently in the future. Students participating in public library summer reading programs scored higher on reading achievement tests at the beginning of the next school year, and were more motivated and confident in their reading.
The Library is eager to start preparations, for we want parents and children alike to know the Library will be available to them, again, this coming summer. However, your help is needed. Your contribution can be monetary or in kind. All contributions are tax deductible and can be made out to the Jersey City Free Public Library Foundation / 2011 Summer Reading Program.
Please contact me at (201) 547-4549, or by email, saraujo@jclibrary.org, with your desire to help the Library’s Summer Reading Program in 2011!
Respectfully,
Sonia Araujo
Assistant Library Director
Jersey City Free Public Library