Province commits $500K to Raise-a-Reader campaign

B.C. children will continue to benefit from innovative literacy programs in their community thanks to a $500,000 investment from the province.

The investment will support this year’s Raise-a-Reader campaign.

The annual week-long campaign supports literacy by increasing awareness and raising money to fund community-based programs throughout B.C.

"Children throughout B.C. are getting the opportunity to develop important literacy skills in their communities and it is thanks in large part to everyone's contributions to Raise-a-Reader this year,” said B.C.’s Minister of Education, Rob Fleming. “Literacy skills play a vital role in helping children and their families lead full and happy lives.”

Families and children engage in reading, playing and other activities that help develop literacy skills through a variety of programs.

Those programs include:

• Vancouver Public Library's Man in the Moon program, which provides opportunities for fathers and other male caregivers to learn how to support early literacy and language development in their children.
• The Kamloops literacy task group's Bright Red Bookshelves program and Bright Red Book Bus programs, which support 22 community bookshelves in Kamloops and a library bus full of books that travels to schools and parks.
• The Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy -- Castlegar's Together to Learn program, which provides a healthy snack and onsite child minding for parents who are working on adult basic education courses at Kootenay Family Place.

The campaign was created by the Vancouver Sun in 1997 and features daily stories in the paper that highlight literacy and library programs.

Since 1997, more than $8 million has been raised in Vancouver alone.