- Queen City Book Bank delivers free books to students in several NKY schools and wants to reach more schools
- Their new program started after the pandemic as a way to directly get more books into students’ hands
- Educators were complementary of the program’s lack of cost and ability to turn more kids on to the joys of reading
A Cincinnati-based organization that distributes free books to students at select schools, including five schools in Northern Kentucky, is hoping to bring the joy of reading to even more kids in the commonwealth.
“It brings books into kids’ homes that might not otherwise have a home library,” said Molly Wesley, the Family Resource Center coordinator at Newport Primary School.
The program Wesley’s discussing is the Curated Book Distribution Program from Queen City Book Bank. Although the organization itself has been around since 1986, this new program didn’t really take off until the organization moved to its new warehouse location on Gest Street in Cincinnati in 2021.
Much of the organization’s early work focused on tutoring and family literacy, said Annie Schneider, Queen City Book Bank’s director of external relations. But after the pandemic hit, they realized “we need to do more with getting the books into their [students’] homes and into their hands.” So, they started researching what other book banks were doing to see if the delivery model was feasible.
“The teachers within that kindergarten and first grade were able to search through our online inventory…,” Schneider said, “and they were able to pick out books for each individual student within their classroom.”
There were only four schools in the program the year it was piloted, and it only served students in kindergarten and 1st grade.
The program has since grown to 20 schools, including five schools in Northern Kentucky: Newport Primary, Newport Intermediate, Latonia Elementary, Ninth District Elementary and John G. Carlisle Elementary, which was just added this year. The program offers books across a variety of topics and reading levels in both English and Spanish.
“We’re committed to adding a new Kentucky school every year,” Schneider said.
These days, volunteers, many of whom are retired teachers and librarians, come in every week on Tuesday to sort through the books. The book bank also bought about 50 Little Libraries, where people can pick up or donate books for free, and put them in “book deserts” (i.e., areas that don’t have easy access to libraries or other sources of books nearby) throughout their service area.
“Something I love about them is the variety of books they give our students,” said Newport Intermediate Librarian Natalie Dellinger.
“The kids are so excited to get their book every month,” Dellinger also said. “The older students are jealous. The teachers love it because these are books that are accessible and that are fun and showcase diversity.”
Schneider said they currently give out about 3,800 books a month with only a staff of about 10 people. It’s a good thing, then, that workers from both Newport and Covington Schools have stepped up to help deliver books to the students in their districts.
At Newport, Wesley said that the maintenance department picks up the books from the book bank.
“Teachers right now are being asked to do nearly impossible things, and they get a lot of wind in their sails when community partners are on board for something like this that benefits their classroom and their students without them having to do much extra,” Wesley said.
“Based on our research, there’s about 35,000 students that could really benefit [from] this program,” Schneider said. “So, we know we’re just scratching the surface with that 3,800 [books]. However, we want to make sure we have the funding and the support, so we don’t have to back out of a school.”
You can learn how to support Queen City Book Bank at their giving page. And check out their most recent annual report to get a more in-depth look at the Curated Book Distribution Program.