CLEVELAND — Flipping through the pages of a book can bring meaningful and mentally stimulating moments.
Sadly, many children in Northeast Ohio do not have that opportunity at home.
Wade Park School on the east side of Cleveland received the 500,000 book from the “If You Give A Child A Book Campaign” on behalf of the Scripps Howard fund and News 5 Family.
The response was filled with excitement.
“It felt special because I saw all the kids having fun,” said sixth grader Caleia Harris. “It makes my heart warm.”
Months after receiving the books, Harris and her classmates had the opportunity to shop at a Scholastic Book Fair at absolutely no cost.
“Lots of kids, they don’t know what things are until they read books,” Harris said.
Sondra Powers, the assistant principal at Wade Park, said the books make a difference in the students lives.
“Most of our children had one or two books before we got those donations last year, last year they were able to get four new books,” said Powers. “It’s made a really big difference.”
With so many children in Cleveland living in poverty, without the campaign, owning new books would be a stretch for some students.
“Some of those books were $9, $10, $11 a piece so that you could feed your family for an evening, so you’re not going to get that book,” said Powers.
For Harris, the amount of support has not gone unnoticed.
“I think it’s actually really nice and generous of them to try and help kids learn how to read and get them books to try and expand their home library.”
You can help by giving what you can here on our website or by texting WEWS to 50155.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
