CECIL COUNTY, Md. — The students in the Cecil County Head Start program get to go on hundreds of adventures without even leaving the building, all thanks to a free book fair.
Just over 3,000 children's books made their way into the classrooms.
For the entire first week of March, students and their families got to shop inside the book fair, picking out every book they wanted to read.
Bonnie McNair is the education specialist for the program and was able to provide the books.
"My dad is a local Santa who got in touch with another organization called Book Smiles, who puts books into book desert areas and because we have families that can't do or afford book fairs. It's so important to get books in their hands," says Bonnie McNair.
She says giving the students a chance to create their own collection of books they can read at home is important.
"It takes ownership of their learning. It also allows them that they're excited about it. They could be excited about it with their parents to help bring the parents in and on board because we're an organization that really strives on family engagement; that's critical for us," says McNair.
And as each student comes in to pick their books, their parents grab some as well.
"We have more parents excited, picking books, reminiscing about books that they had as a kid, ones that they are looking for, and I also find that the more we get our parents excited about the books, the more inclined they are to read and engage with their students," says McNair.
McNair says this is ideal for the community because for some families it may be challenging to get to a local library or even buy books for their home, and this free book fair gives them access to a wide range of reading material.
"They're so used to going places and getting one or two, and we've been able to provide them a bag, and they walked out of here with 10 or 20 books in a bag, and then we have them coming every day, so they really building a home library," she says.
The remainder of the books left over after the week will go to other Head Start programs throughout Maryland.
