By Denise Corbo | Founder and CEO
Thanks to your generous donations, the Story Book Treasures program has grown and we hosted our very first StoryBook Treasures Volunteer Book Packing Event!
More than 500 elementary students have new reading material thanks to the hard work of 27 dedicated volunteers on Monday, November 7th, at Loudoun County High School.
The volunteers – members of the high school’s Educators Rising (teacher cadets), Battle of the Books team and CAMPUS (plus two students from Briar Woods High School) – put together StoryBook Treasures book bags.
Denise Corbo, a SEARCH teacher at Horizon and Steuart W. Weller elementary schools, started StoryBook Treasures, a non-profit organization, with the goal of providing books and reading materials to promote literacy and education for all children. The entire program is run by volunteers. 100 percent of all donations are used for books and teaching materials.
This year, the StoryBook Treasures program expanded from two schools to six. More than 2,500 books and teaching materials will be sent to teachers, who will use the books and materials with more than 560 students in pre-school through second grade.
In the past, Corbo packed and shipped everything herself. This year, she reached out to Loudoun County High School Reading Specialist/Literacy Coach Lisa Pellegrino to help coordinate the first StoryBook Treasures book-packing event. Pellegrino organized the student volunteers.
Reston Shirts donated T-shirts to make the event memorable for the volunteers. Pellegrino, Corbo, Natalie Walker, a kindergarten teacher at Horizon Elementary, and Todd Duffy, one of StoryBook Tresures financial donors, oversaw the event.
The books packed November 7th were destined for schools in the Sterling area and a school district in Florida. Each teacher will receive four to five shipments of books per year. Everything the teacher needs to implement the program is in the box.
Accompanying the books are “treasures,” such as small, stuffed animals. The treasures are what Corbo calls the “Happy Meal” effect. The treasures help the students build another layer of excitement and connection to the story. Once the classroom instruction is complete, the students take the StoryBook Tresures materials home in a backpack to share with their family. Each time a new book is sent home they will add it to their StoryBook Treasures collection. A parent bookmark also is sent home with students to help parents guide the conversation when they read with their child.
On November 7th, the volunteers spread out to the different tables in Loudoun County’s café where they found books, treasures and other teaching materials. The students packed each box with materials according to the quantity on the label outside of the 250 packing boxes. Volunteers worked for two hours and took a break with pizza before packing for a final hour.
“The event was surreal to me; to see it all in action,” said Corbo. “When you have a dream, see it playing out and hearing the echoing of positive comments and excitement – that’s when you know you are making a difference.”
At the end of the event, students were given a certificate that verifies their three volunteer hours.
StoryBook Treasures is proud to be a 100% volunteer organization. No salaries and all donations go directly to the mission of putting books in the hands of children who need them the most. We hope you contunie to support our program. Your donation of $50 supports and changes the life of one child during an entire school year with the the gift of literacy!
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