Over the last several weeks, customers checking out at Statesboro's Books-A-Million were given the opportunity to purchase a book to donate to the Altrusa Club of Statesboro's Backpack Buddies literacy program. Sales associates chose a variety of books to display at the register to make purchases as easy as possible, but customers were also welcome to make their own selections from the shelves.
Together, customers purchased more than $5,000 worth of books for donation to the club.
Altrusa International's worldwide focus is literacy, and Altrusa Statesboro Literacy Committee co-chairs Sandy Smith, Eileen Rice, and Pat Parsons were thrilled with the donation.
"One of our missions of Altrusa is to put a book in the hands of children," Smith said.
The Statesboro club does this through several local avenues. They distribute free class sets of books to all pre-K students in Bulloch County every single month, on top of giving free books to students ages pre-K to 5th grade in the Statesboro Backpack Buddies program. They are also donating books to two local, federally funded daycares, as well as focusing on a targeted approach to donating books to kindergartners in lower scoring Bulloch County schools.
In total, the club is giving away around 1,400 books per month in Bulloch County. All of these books are sorted, coded, and distributed by club members.
"It takes a lot of books," Altrusa's Karen Lavender said of the efforts, noting how amazing the Books-A-Million donations would be in aiding their work.
This fall, they will approach an impressive milestone of having given out 100,000 books to local children.
About Altrusa
Altrusa International of Statesboro meets at Pittman Park UMC the first Monday of the month for its business meeting and the third Monday of the month for its program meeting. They are always in need of book donations.
For more information on the Statesboro chapter of Altrusa, visit the club's website or Facebook page.