High School students donate 1,786 books to the Early Childhood Resource Center

Friday, March 30, 2018

Tags: Early Childhood Resource Center , Outreach

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Hoover High School students in North Canton, Ohio, held a book drive throughout February, collecting 1,786 book to donate to the Early Childhood Resource Center. Students from two other districts also collected books. Students from all three districts delivered the books on March 14 to the ECRC. 

The Suburbanite.com published an article about the book drives and the delivery to the ECRC. The full text of the article is below.

A ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System, the Early Childhood Resource Center is a child care resource and referral agency that works to promote the healthy development of young children by: strengthening families, improving the quality of early learning experiences, increasing school and community readiness, and informing public policy.

Hoover teaching professions students donate books

By Patricia Faulhaber
March 26,2018

High School students from the Teaching Professions program and the Educators Rising club held a book drive in February. Students in the program put collection boxes in all of the elementary schools, the middle schools and the high school to collect new or slightly used books for kids aged birth through fifth grade.

In just one month, the two groups collected 1,786 books to donate to the Early Childhood Resource Center (ECRC) in Canton. This is the fourth year the students participated in the book drive and donation.

Students from two other districts, Perry High School and GlenOak High School, also collected books in February. Students from all three districts joined together to deliver the books to the ECRC on March 14. Hoover High School Assistant Principal Robert White joined all of the students and teachers to help unload books.

Teaching Professions is a career and technical program where the students will go to college after graduating high school to pursue a teaching degree. Shirley Dobry is a teacher in the Teaching Professions II and she said students in the program want to major in education and many join the Ohio chapter of the national group called Educators Rising.

“This is an annual district-wide book drive, we publicize it through social media and the school’s newsletter and we usually collect well over 1,000 books each year,” Dobry said.

Hoover senior Hannah Hoehn is in her second year in the program and said she wants to be an intervention specialist for early childhood.

“It’s important for the kids to have their own books, it encourages learning and it helps them create their own self-awareness,” Hoehn said. “We collected books of all types because the books will go to kids of a variety of ages who have a variety of interests.”

The books will be distributed through the Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK) program at the ECRC. The program provides new books every month, fun and educational activities, backpacks with school supplies, family newsletters, parenting tips and a parent partner who visits families in their homes once a month. The parent partner is a professional who helps the families share school readiness activities, helps parents guide their child’s development and helps link families with other resources to support their children’s needs.

SPARK Director Mary Brady said the books are vitally needed for the participants in the program. SPARK is serving 1,000 families in Stark County.

“The books are a bridge with parents and children and supports the importance of literacy which is the gateway to life, children need good reading skills to complete the many other classes they take in school,” Brady said. “Many of the homes we go into have little or no reading material for children, these books will provide many children in the program with his or her own book. The books are a mix of fiction and nonfiction because a child needs exposure to all kinds of reading materials.”