BookFest helps promote reading and prevent summer learning loss by ensuring that the K-2nd graders who need them most go home for the summer with self-selected reading material.

This year’s structure was identical to last year’s, but with participation from EIGHT more schools. In partnership with the Early Learning Alliance and United Way of Lane County, we created a Book Menu that displayed the covers of 25 diverse picture and chapter books. Students selected their top five titles and returned the menus to us. We ordered their top three choices and paired them with a few gently-used books from our book drive inventory. Book bags were created and dropped off at all 12 schools for distribution to their K-2nd kiddos before the end of the school year.