|
First Book-Union College hosts young readers on campus
for story rhymes
LINCOLN—First Book-Union
College will host children at “Special Times and Story Rhymes With
Princess Poetrina,” on Sunday, Oct. 23, from 3 to 5 p.m. The event is part
of Make-A-Difference Day, and will be held in Woods Auditorium on the
Union College campus, located at 3800 South 48th Street (enter campus from
Bancroft Avenue). Invitations have been shared with Lincoln public
elementary schools and daycare programs that serve a high percentage of
underprivileged children.
According to First Book, a national
non-profit organization that has distributed more than 20 million new
books to disadvantaged children nationwide, 61 percent of low-income
families have no books at all for their children. Eighty percent of
low-income childcare centers lack age-appropriate books and other printed
materials. First Book-Union College Advisory Board, steered by education
students and faculty, has a single mission: to give children from
low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.
To create an opportunity for children
to encounter literature, First Book-Union College has invited children,
through their school or daycare organization, and their parents to a
performance by Princess Poetrina, a character created by Mary Schwartzkopf,
a local story reader and favorite of children throughout the Lincoln
community. Princess Poetrina will read poetry by Bruce Lansky, dubbed “the
king of giggle poetry.” Following the performance, each child will receive
a Bruce Lansky poetry book.
In addition to the story time event,
the community can learn more about the First Book-Union College efforts
from student volunteers at an information booth located South Pointe Mall
from 1-5 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 23. Donations to further the work of First
Book-Union College in Lincoln will be accepted. (Monetary gifts only
please—not books.)
In the last two years, students and
faculty of the First Book-Union College Advisory Board have raised monies
to purchase more than 5,000 books for children in the Lincoln community.
Some of the books have been used in before- and after-school programs, as
well as for disadvantaged children in local daycares and community
centers. |
