HELENA — We at KTVH and Scripps believe in promoting child literacy, so each year we hold the “If You Give a Child a Book” Campaign, in an effort to raise money to buy brand new books which are then distributed to areas of need within communities of our television stations.
This last September MTN News Anchor Jessica Nelson led our book campaign in Helena, and raised over $9600.
This was the first year KTVH took part in the “If You Give a Child a Book Campaign” and we chose to raise money to buy new books for students at Bryant Elementary School.
Trisha Klock is the Principal at Bryant Elementary School, she says, “We have one family that got to take home 24 books, they have a whole brand-new library because of what you guys did, it’s just amazing!”
Our station employees, along with a matching donation from Scripps- raised over $9600 for the book campaign, which meant each student at Bryant Elementary School got to take home 6 brand new books.
Trisha tells me a story about one little boy in particular, he said, “Mrs. Klock I promise I will take such good care of them and I will bring them back so someone else can have them, and I said 'buddy, those are your books, those are yours'. His eyes got so big, and said 'are you serious, this is the best gift ever!'”
Scripps partners with Scholastic and allows teachers to pick and choose from various popular titles and grade levels of reading.
Principal Klock says, “As parents and grandparents are walking by they’re saying well my kid loves that one and my grandkids love that one, so we were able to sit down and pick out some really great titles for our kids, and they were high quality really good books.”
Not only did every student at the school get to take home 6 books, but the librarian also got to take one of each title to add to the school library for students to read for many years to come.
Superintendent of Helena Public Schools, Dr. Tyler Ream says, “Just like us adults when we get a book it is something special, and for kids it’s that and then some just wanted to say thank you to you all.”
Trisha says for her student population being able to take home 6 brand new books, and keep them, is truly life changing.
