PROJECT BOOK BAG: Building Personal Libraries at Kipp Raices Academy in CA

Project Book Bag at Kipp Raices Academy in Los Angeles, CA, gives books to kids for summer reading.

Every year just before summer break, Project Book Bag gives young students at Kipp Raices Academy, an elementary school in East Los Angeles, a bag full of grade appropriate books to bring home and call their own. Last Wednesday, I spent the morning helping volunteers distribute the bags of books to the children in their classrooms.

Books ready to be distributed. Green bags are for girls; purple for boys.

The children were SO excited to receive the books, finding many of their favorite series as well as new titles, both fiction and nonfiction. Seeing the smiles on their faces as they pulled the books out of the bags was a joy to watch.

This was the eighth year of this program. In past years I have donated books–both my own and from my collection. This was the second time I had been there in person to help distribute the books. This year each kindergarten student got one of my folding board books, either Who Has More? Who Has Fewer? or Who Is Bigger? Who Is Smaller? It was fun to see the children pull the books out of their cases and expand them out to their full width.

Some of the many Book Bag Project volunteers

A devoted group of volunteers collects the books (both used and new), cleans them if necessary, and sorts them by appropriate age levels. This year, like last year, a group of Boy Scouts helped clean the books and assemble the bags as a service project. Matt, who is earning his Eagle Scout badge, is one of them, and his father was there to meet the students help deliver the books.

The mission of Project Book Bag, a nonprofit, “is to make sure that all kids have books at home to keep them reading and help them find their interests. Research shows that children who do not have access to reading material over the summer experience "learning loss," causing them to fall behind their peers. The kids in the KIPP school(s) are already performing better than many other kids in their area and we want to insure that they keep their skills sharp when school is not in session.”

Students at Kipp Raices are encouraged to read and excel at every level. Each classroom has the name of a university, exposing children early to the goal of going to college. Among the classrooms I visited were UCLA, USC, Yale and Syracuse.

Many thanks to Nancy Casolaron and Sarina Simon for spearheading Project Book Bag and making it such a success.
You can learn more about Project Book Bag at their Facebook Page and at their website.