Every year at the end of February, the 120 chapters of the Assistance League organization participate in Action Week, an initiative to celebrate the birthday of founder Anne Banning by helping children to grow and know that others care about them.  Each chapter devises its own plan to help children in need.  For many years, our chapter’s Action Week efforts have focused on Literacy, and we have provided new books to many schools.  Most recently, we have held ‘book fairs’ at selected schools, at which every student receives a brand new book.  Our members would come to the school and help each student select a book to take home on a topic of particular interest to that student.

This year’s Action Week initiative again supported literacy, with book donations at four of the Title 1 schools we support.  Unfortunately, we could not hold our usual book fair, because of Covid restrictions. So, instead we delivered 675 brand new books, in 25 cartons, to the librarian at one of the school’s we serve.  Members of our Literacy Committee worked with the librarian to identify the best books for the school’s student population.  We also donated 100 new books to one of the school’s we support. In 58 separate quilt bundles we included books suitable for young children and delivered them to other schools.  Because of the commitment and creativity of our members, our Action Week program touched 833 young readers this year.