As of Dec. 9, almost 10,000 books were donated.
Service Patriotism Understanding Responsibility Sacrifice (SPURS), Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society and Theta Chi Fraternity collaborated with the Yamhill Commission on Children and Families and Reading for All to serve the community in the drive.
Intern for the Yamhill Commission on Children and Families senior Libby Wilcox said that seeing all the organizations working together is tremendous.
“It is great to see people excited about the drive and that people are actually donating books,” she said. “A lot of youth in the community don’t have access to books and reading material all the time. The drive allows us to distribute more books in the community.”
The groups decided to collaborate, and Reading for All placed a donation box outside of the trailer that Theta Chi Fraternity uses during its 12 Days of Christmas charity event.
Senior and president of Theta Chi Fraternity Beau Slayton said that 12 days of Christmas is its chief philanthropy event. Wilcox initiated the partnership, Slayton said; she called and asked if they could work together.
“It was nice to put the collection box out front,” Slayton said. “If there are books we can add and disperse through YCAP, then we’ve done a good job.”
SPURS and the ALD are helping out with a book drop-off on Fourth Street. Community members can drive by and drop off books.
ALD is donating a portion of its club funds to 3rd Street Books to pick out books to contribute.
The community has become involved as well. Wilcox said that Mable Rush Elementary School donated 1,000 books on Dec. 6.
Theta Chi Fraternity has collected 40 or 60 books so far, Slayton said.
“For one collection site, we’ve done pretty darn well,” he said. “Our location is another point of vision for the cause. Our guys are telling people about the book drive.”
He explained that there are more books being
donated at the various locations around campus, including in the Fred Meyer Lounge, Nicholson Library and the Pre-K Lab in Potter Hall.
Wilcox said the Potter Hall Pre-K location collected
a large amount of books last year because parents brought in the books their children outgrew.
As of Dec. 6, the library collected more than 50 books.
Yamhill County has contributed approximately 31 percent of the books donated in the drive, Wilcox said.
“The more kids read, the better they will do in school. There’s a ripple effect,” she said. “At Reading for All, we have funding, but sometimes kids say, ‘Oh, I’ve already read all these books.’ The drive gives us more to work with. It also creates awareness that reading is important and that increasing literacy rates should be a priority.”
The books collected will be donated to children, youth and families in need throughout Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties.
Last year, the Holiday Book Drive was held in Marion County and 34,000 books were collected.
Visit the Reading for All website at reading4all.com for additional information and for the updated total number of books collected.
Hillary Krippaehne Copy editor
Hillary Krippaehne can be reached at [email protected].
