DETROIT (WXYZ) — It's National Reading Month and on Wednesday, more than 500 students received new and age-appropriate books through one of Channel 7's "If You Give A Child A Book" events.
The drive-thru and in-person book fair was held at Edison Elementary Academy in Detroit, and a total of 552 students took home two new books each on Wednesday.
Employees at WXYZ-TV and TV-20 Detroit, along with the Scripps Howard Foundation, have made it their mission to get high-quality books to children in our community through the "If You Give A Child A Book" campaign.
This past summer, WXYZ-TV and TV-20 Detroit did a call-out for donations from employees and the community. With those collected funds and with a matching contribution from the Scripps Howard Foundation, we are able to give 10,359 books to children in the community this year.
The nationwide campaign resulted in more than 165,000 books that will be distributed, which will generate about 30,960,000 reading minutes.
In partnership with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan and Scholastic, WXYZ-TV has distributed more than 10,000 books across eight partner schools in the metro Detroit area through various events and book drive-thrus. Books are chosen to be specific to each school and classroom.
Edison Elementary is just one of the schools the we have helped with book donations so far this year.
Additionally, more than $25,000 will be donated to schools for reading resources through Scholastic.
If you'd like to donate to the If Give a Child a Book effort, visit wxyz.com/giveabook.
