“I Know I Can”is a children’s book about forming goals, identifying ways to achieve them and about aspiring toward achieving a college education.  Volunteers wear their own college logos and spend one class period reading the book “I Know I Can” to students.  They share personal college experiences and show that the pathway to college includes things they can do now to achieve their goals.  All participating third graders in the Rockford public schools are given their own copies of “I Know I Can”, to take home and share with friends and family and remind them to work toward their goals.

To Date Andy’s Books for Kids’ goal for 2012 is to donate new children’s books or the monetary equivalent to the following projects:

1. Machesney Elementary School, Machesney Park, IL
   In January of 2012 Andy”s Books for Kids will donate a new children’s books to every student attending Machesney Elementary School. The school houses 4th, 5th and 6th grade students. Three book titles will be donated, one for each grade level. During the months of January and February literary activities surrounding these books will be carried out by the students, culminating in a Family Literary Night in the middle of March. I am working on creating a link from this website to a Machesney Elementary School page for the students to post information about the book activities as they occur.

   Project completed:
   On March 2nd, 2012 Machesney Elementary School held their kick off event for their One School One Book project. Andy’s Books donated 472 copies of the book, The World According to Humphrey, one to every student at the school. Between March 5th and the 29th there were numerous activities surrounding the reading of the book, including trivia questions and drawings and the sharing of the care of a hamster (Humphrey in the story is a hamster) by each classroom in the school. A Belvidere High School student was recruited to create a webpage with Andy’s Books website for the Machesney students to use to find the trivia questions, the daily reading assignments and to post pictures and other such information about the event. The month culminated in a Family Night on March 29th for students, teachers and parents to celebrate the book with activities, games, food, prizes and fun!

2. Kishwaukee Elementary School, Rockford, IL
   Andy’s Books for Kids will donate a book to every student attending Kishwaukee Elementary School in March 2012. More information about this donation is upcoming.

   Project completed:
   Early in December each student at Kishwaukee Elementary School were able to pick a book of their choosing to be donated on their 1st Family Literacy Night. On March 1st, 2012 during the Literacy event, Andy’s Books donated the 383 chosen books to the students at the school.

3. Brookview Elementary School, Rockford, IL
   Andy’s Books for Kids will be a sponsor again for A Family Literacy Night held by Brookview School in Rockford, IL in March 2012. Andy’s Books will donate a new book to every student in the school, to be distributed during their program.

   Project completed:
   There was a slight kink in the works for this project. The students had each chosen the book they wished to received from Andy’s Books and the Literacy Night was scheduled for Thursday, March 29th. However, due to a teacher’s strike the event was cancelled. Asked what Andy’s Books wanted to do with all the books I replied that I still wanted to give them to the kids as it was not fair after they had picked the specific book they wanted not to give it to them. So plans were made to have some sort of ceremony to distribute the books.Ceremony turned into an understatement. Brookview School declared Friday, March 4th Reading Day. It was an exciting day for the students, starting with an amazing parade of all kinds of vehicles, marchers and the students holding homemade banners all about the joy of reading. As the kids were settling down in the gym to their delight their teachers performed a flash mob dance for them which was followed by the donation of a book to all 470 students. Reading Day afternoon was filled with a stories told by a story teller who was accompanied by her service dog.

   So the disappointment of the March 29th cancellation turned into the excitement of the May 4th Reading Day!

4. Belvidere Elementary and High School Libraries, Belvidere, IL
   Andy’s Books for Kids will donate $4500 to be split between Belvidere and Belvidere North High Schools, Washington Academy, Lincoln Elementary and Perry Elementary schools to purchase new books for their libraries.

   Project completed:
   On January 11th checks totaling $4500 were delivered to the two Belvidere High Schools, Washington Academy, Lincoln Elementary and Perry Elementary Schools all in Belvidere. The money was used to purchase new books for the school libraries.

5. Kid Synergy
   Project Completed:
   On May 5th Andy’s Books donated 100 books to the Blackhawk Boys and Girls Club for an event sponsored by students at Rock Valley College in Rockford. The event, Kid Synergy, had three separate functions implemented which included team building activities, information on the negative effects of bullying and activities that emphasized the benefits of physical fitness and the final segment was a book reading for all the children. They worked with the kids one on one to determine their interests and reading level so that they could appropriately help them select a book from one of the 100 donated that that particular child would enjoy. Each child at the event was given the book of their choosing to keep and bring home with him or her.

Dates of the Drive:
Monday, March 19th through August 1st, 2012
Drop off location:
Wonderland Books, Edgebrook Shopping Center, Rockford

We did not accept the following books:

• Encyclopedias
• Book club books
• Magazines
• Textbooks
• Books that are damaged, ie, ripped, coverless, written in, water damaged, etc.

For more information or any questions please email Meg Hodge at meghodge@andysbooks.org or call 815-262-3473.

Andy’s Books for Kids held its 2nd annual used book sale in Exhibition Hall #2 at the 2011 Boone County Fair August 9th – 14th. The proceeds from the sale, which totaled $7000, were used to buy more children’s books in 2012.

Barre City Elementary and Middle School, Barre, VT
Barre City Elementary and Middle School serves students from pre-K through eighth grade from the city of Barre in Washington County, Vermont. The school is eligible for participation in state and federal Title I programs. Many of the students participate in the free or reduced lunch programs.

BCEMS is in a financially precarious city in Vermont and as such has limited funds for non-essential items for its school. On this list of non-essentials is an adequate supply of new books for the school library. In September 2011 Andy’s Books for Kids donated $5000 to Barre City Elementary for the purpose of purchasing new children’s books for the school’s library.

Partnering with the Winnebago County Medical Society Alliance to help provide funds for Rx: Read to Your Child
Andy’s Books for Kids partnered with the Winnebago County Medical Society Alliance to help provide funds for their Rx: Read to Your Child Program. This program donates new children’s books to the three Crusader Clinics in Rockford, IL and the Crusader Clinic in Belvidere, IL. The donated books are then given to children from the ages of 6 months to 6 years at their well child visits to the clinics. Crusader Clinic is a community based not for profit health care provider which serves people in need. In 2009 17,000 child visits were made to the four clinics. In February 2011 Andy’s Books donated $2500 to help the Alliance fund the purchase of books for donation to these four clinics.

West View Elementary School, Rockford, IL
Andy’s Books for Kids donated a book to every child who is a student at West View Elementary School in Rockford, IL in March, 2011. There are approximately 360 students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade who attend this school. Approximately 87% of the children at West View are from low-income homes.

Brookview Elementary School, Rockford, IL
Andy’s Books for Kids was again a sponsor for A Family Literacy Night held by Brookview Elementary School in Rockford, IL on May 11, 2011. Andy’s Books donated a new book to every student in the school, which were distributed during their program on the 11th.

In spite of daily temperatures in the 90′s and very high humidity levels, we had constant traffic through our booth at the fair. We were not only able to sell lots of books but we were also able to raise awareness of Andy’s Books and what we are striving to do for kids in this area and beyond. And, it was fun to be out at the fairgrounds, commiserating with the other vendors and fair attendees about the awful weather, and thoroughly enjoying meeting, chatting with and selling books to all the fair goers who visited the booth and found just the book or books they were looking for.

Because of the sheer quantity of books that we received and our limited display space, we have many, many books left to sell. I am looking for another venue to sell these books, perhaps where we can display them all at the same time. As soon as I know where and when this sale will take place I will put it on the website.

Thanks to all of you who visited our booth for your support of Andy’s Books for Kids… Sounds Like a Plan!

Andy’s Books for Kids donated over 150 children’s books to the Women’s Crisis to help grow their children’s library so that the children who are currently being served by the center have books available for them to read or to be read to them. If a child would like to take a book with him when he leaves the Center the book is then given to the child to keep as his own.