On February 15^th, Scholastic employees didn’t go straight home after work hours – they went to volunteer and celebrate reading at a Read and Rise Book Fair at PS 180 in Harlem, NYC.  It was an amazing experience for fellow OOMer Nadia and I…so we just HAD to blog about it!

Yanique –

Working in the Corporate Communications department at Scholastic, I’ve never had the chance to see how a book fair was run, and while volunteering for this one, I thought, “I’m good with kids, this will be a piece of cake.”  Oh man was I wrong.  So much work and energy goes into running a book fair – the planning, setting up, organizing, and keeping kids engaged, are all major parts of the “book fair machine.”  I learned so much about how book fairs work and the look on the kids’ faces that night, made all the work worth while! I met some cute kids, great parents, and school staff who mean business when it comes to their kids’ education.

Nadia –

Since I began working at Scholastic in September, I’ve been learning about the Read and Rise Book Fairs. These fairs help communities rally behind literacy and help families build the skills, attitudes, and behaviors that support children’s literacy development through fun, literacy-based events. The students receive $5 reading certificates to choose a book from the fair so they can build their own home libraries. I finally got to witness the excitement firsthand and capture the evening on camera!

Check us out below doing what we do best – spreading our love of books and reading!

We listened to Maggie McGuire, Vice President of eScholastic, Kids and Parents Channels, lead the parent workshop. It was so interesting to hear parents talk about their experiences reading when they were kids and what they do now with their own kids.

Over in the gymnasium, Scholastic volunteers read to kids and discussed books. They may not have been in PE, but the students were definitely jumping with excitement! Kids pretended to surf and swim while OOM-er Alex read them Pig Kahuna.

 
Students got creative during the Klutz: Build a Book activity, writing and illustrating their own stories.