Ready for Summer – Ready to Read

Ready for Summer – Ready to Read

Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

More than 1,300 students from Mountain View and Cedar Park Middle Schools will start summer break with brand-new books, thanks to their dedicated Library Media Assistants and individual contributions from our generous community. 

Throughout the last year and a half, library staff have worked tirelessly to get physical books into the hands of students. Despite their best efforts, many students still have had limited opportunities to pick-up reading materials. Now that the school year has come to an end, these same students have even less access to books.

Using funds generated from BEF’s crowdfunding platform, Beaverton’s Choice, staff were able to buy books from long-standing educational partner, Scholastic. Those purchases earned Scholastic dollars, that were immediately available to purchase even more – resulting in approximately 25% more books in total.

“During Scholastic Book Fairs, the students get very excited about buying new books,” explained Debbie Hernandez, Cedar Park Library Media Assistant. “But a lot of them can’t afford to buy them, so it’s great to be able to hand them a book at no charge.”

Prior to distance learning, Mountain View routinely had some of the highest book checkout rates in the District. Their Hands-on Books for Hands-on Readers! project through Beaverton’s Choice is helping Library Media Assistant, Madeline Robinette, keep her students’ love of reading strong this summer thanks to new books delivered to 450 students.

After students received their books, they sent messages exclaiming, “I GOT THE BOOK, THANK YOU,” and “Thanks for the book! It brightened my year!“

While we all look forward to a much-deserved break this summer, 1,316 more Beaverton middle school students will be able to do so while losing themselves in the book in front of them, and not the screen. Do you have your summer books picked out?