Third Grade Book Drive

The 2021 Third Grade Book Drive

By Annie Sykes

This December, SAS third graders, inspired by the idea of every child in Austin having access to a home library, organized a book drive with BookSpring. The book drive brought in over 1,700 books! Here is the story of the first annual Third Grade Book Drive.

Third graders proudly showing off the results of the book drive.

3rd Graders Work Together To Help

As the coordinator of community service on the 31st St. campus, I heard from Mr. Chilton earlier this year about brainstorming a service-oriented project or field trip for the third grade. We began by looking for a way to connect the students' current learning with service; one of the principles of service learning is that when service is directly tied to what students are learning in the classroom, both the learning and the community impact intensify. As it turned out, the third graders were in the middle of a humanities unit called "Overcoming learning challenges near and far." Mr. Chilton and the students began discussing how they might be able to help others in our community overcome a learning challenge.

One such challenge the third grade identified is not having access to books in the home. Studies show that children with home libraries are more likely to see positive outcomes in literacy, numeracy, and even problem solving and empathy. However, the third graders came to understand that building a home library takes money, time, space, access, and many other resources that not everyone has in equal amounts. This was the issue the third grade wanted to address; they were looking to promote equity in access to books and the positive outcomes associated with it.

Our book drive was inspired by our first humanities module in third grade, "Overcoming learning challenges near and far." In this module, we studied how people around the world are faced with and overcoming obstacles to learning. We brought this study right here to Austin where we figured out that many kids in central Texas face obstacles accessing books. So the book drive and Bookspring were a good solution and tangible way to use our privilege," said Kenny Chilton.

With home library equity in mind, I started looking and asking around for local organizations that have a similar mission. Several members of the St. Andrew’s community brought up BookSpring, a local non-profit whose mission is to "build literacy skills and the motivation to read through increasing home libraries and reading aloud activities for children." They support literacy with families, elementary schools, and other groups all around Austin. I reached out and began working with Mariela Rodriguez, BookSpring's Communication Director, to organize a book drive for the end of December. BookSpring was incredible to work with, even dropping our logo into a flier we could use for advertising.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chilton, Mrs. Dolan, and Ms. Goldman were working with the third graders on the drive and the reason behind it. The students were very excited and got right down to work: They made posters to advertise the drive and posted them all around the Lower School. They found and decorated boxes to store the book donations as they arrived. They even took a morning to go to every Lower School homeroom to present about the drive and deliver fliers with hand-written letters on the back!

Finally, the week came when donations should start arriving. None of us knew what to expect, so we were thrilled to see the books start pouring in. Families in every grade sent books! By the end of the drive, the third graders had collected over 1,700 books. Mr. Chilton even had to move his collection area to the hallway just to have enough room in the classroom! It was a huge success.

The next step was to deliver the books to BookSpring. Mr. Chilton and Mr. Richardson, SAS Director of Transportation, muscled the 1,700+ books into the back of one our school Suburbans. After Lessons & Carols, I drove them over to BookSpring for the drop-off. The staff there helped me unload the books, and by the time we were done, the third grade books took up an entire section of the donation area! The folks at BookSpring were thrilled!

With the drive over and the books delivered, BookSpring took over. One of the ways they support their mission is by partnering with elementary schools to give out books and host literacy events. The Third Grade Book Drive books went to two of these partner schools: Wooten Elementary and Harris Elementary. Together, Wooten and Harris Elementary serve between 750 and 800 students. Mariela Rodriguez shared the following

Books were donated from every grade in the Lower School.

information about the impact of the book drive: “The books collected by SAS students supported holiday book giveaways for students at two campuses: Wooten and Harris Elementary. All students selected one book for themselves and another to gift to a classmate, and all students went home with two books before the holiday break.”

Because of the Third Grade Book Drive, two books from the Third Grade Book Drive now live in the homes of over 700 fellow elementary students in Austin. This is both inspiring and motivating; the energy and generosity of our community made a substantial impact yet there is still so much to be done. If you feel inspired and motivated as well, take a cue from the third graders. Learn about a cause you care about, make a plan to support it, and ask your community for help.

Discussion Questions:

■ What are home libraries, and why are they good to have? ■ What can we do to make it easier for everyone to have a home library regardless of income or flexible time? ■ What are some other obstacles to learning that people face in our community? ■ How can we help?