July 2024 - Morgan Stanley Team Members donate over 700 children's books.
Thank you again to the Morgan Stanley Fort Myers Branch team for their exceptional generosity in this second year of their annual book drive.
These books will be distributed to the children of the Harlem Heights Community Charter School as well as being placed in our Free Book Boxes throughout the community.
Thank you again to the Morgan Stanley Fort Myers Branch team for their exceptional generosity in this second year of their annual book drive.
These books will be distributed to the children of the Harlem Heights Community Charter School as well as being placed in our Free Book Boxes throughout the community.
Nicole Majoras, Morgan Stanley (right) with Mary Corrigan, And Literacy for All with the 700+ donated children's books
February 2023-The Downtown Free Book Box is back! This box is located on Edwards Drive in Vivas Palm Park directly across the street from the Fort Myers Riverfront Marina. During Hurricane Ian, it was inundated with water and tossed about by the winds. We have rescued, refurbished, and restocked it. The accompanying picture of the marina shows the aftermath of Ian even now, four months later.
Lakes Park has reopened. The Free Book Box in the Children's Garden at Lakes Park has been refurbished and restocked after having been damaged by Hurricane Ian. This box is a joint project of And Literacy for All and Girl Scouts Troop 292 as a community service promoting literacy. After sustaining severe storm damage and subsequently being used as a temporary home base for FEMA workers, Lakes Park had been closed since September 28.
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See great coverage of our work in the Fort Myers News-Press
http://www.news-press.com/story/news/education/2017/10/30/literacy-all-nonprofit-focused-fixing-reading-gap-lee-county/798802001/ Shop Amazon Smile at http://smile.amazon.com/ch/81-5022717 and Amazon donates to And Literacy For All. #YouShopAmazonDonates |
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Reading in Our Parks
On behalf of the children and families we serve,
We Thank You!
The USA TODAY NETWORK and the Gannett Foundation’s ‘A Community Thrives’ fundraiser has awarded And Literacy for All a $3,000 Local Operating Grant!
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2020/12/09/gannett-foundation-awards-grants-3-southwest-florida-nonprofits/3858494001/
We sincerely thank each one of you who made this fundraising campaign a success.
This grant makes possible an additional three new Neighborhood Park Free Book Boxes
and a year’s supply of high quality multiculturally appropriate books for each.
In fact, your original donations of $4,500 have already contributed
to the purchase of over 60 cartons of books that have been distributed
throughout our community via our existing Free Book Boxes.
Your participation in this fundraising campaign supports our mission and strengthens our effort to demonstrate that And Literacy for All has the strong community backing that merits the support of a prestigious organization such as the Gannett Foundation.
Sophia Roelens and Ayla Millican and their artwork.
Cape Coral Yacht Club and Park gets a new Free Book Box
And Literacy for All (ALFA), a Fort Myers based non-profit, partnered with Roelens Vacation Rentals to repurpose this newspaper vending box. It is a source of FREE BOOKS for children and families who visit the Cape Coral Yacht Club Park. ALFA uses these boxes to redistribute donated books.
And Literacy for All (ALFA), a Fort Myers based non-profit, partnered with Roelens Vacation Rentals to repurpose this newspaper vending box. It is a source of FREE BOOKS for children and families who visit the Cape Coral Yacht Club Park. ALFA uses these boxes to redistribute donated books.
And Literacy for All partnered with All Faiths Unitarian Congregation at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration to distribute several hundred free books to the participants. We were fortunate to have many donated high-quality books about African-American history and culture to include in the mix. We accept donated books from a variety of sources and redistribute them for free through events such as these, our network of Free Book Boxes, and free book events in local classrooms.
We have achieved a major milestone!
We have redistributed 15,000 free books.
On Friday, November 8,2019 First-grader David Morales at Harlem Heights Community Charter School (HHCCS), picked a free book to take home. He is showing the gold star inside the back cover that indicates he had chosen our 10.000th free book. Since then we continue to have high demand for free books, especially through our Free Book Boxes, and have now given away over 15,000. Like every student at HHCCS, David participates in our read-aloud program that also includes choosing a free book for his home library. We redistribute gently used and new books throughout our community through a combination of our 12 Free Book boxes, our Free Book Friday read-alouds, and participation at various community events. David is shown with And Literacy for All President Mary Corrigan. Mary is dedicated to our mission of “Building family and community literacy one book at a time.”
Help us restock our supply of children's books.
Books are flying out of the Free Book Boxes at Franklin Park Elementary School, the Harlem Heights Community Charter School, the Quality Life Center in Fort Myers, Lakes Park Children's Garden, Camelot Park, SalusCare Children's Center for Growth, Jefferson Park, The Cape Coral Yacht Club Park, the William (Bill) Austen Youth Center, and All Faiths Unitatian Congregation. They provide books to children and families who might not otherwise have access to them.
We obtain our books through a combination of book donations from individuals as well as from organizations such as schools and libraries, and by purchasing them from discount booksellers. We use any monetary donations to purchase books and buy materials to build and maintain the Free Book boxes.
We have redistributed 15,000 free books.
On Friday, November 8,2019 First-grader David Morales at Harlem Heights Community Charter School (HHCCS), picked a free book to take home. He is showing the gold star inside the back cover that indicates he had chosen our 10.000th free book. Since then we continue to have high demand for free books, especially through our Free Book Boxes, and have now given away over 15,000. Like every student at HHCCS, David participates in our read-aloud program that also includes choosing a free book for his home library. We redistribute gently used and new books throughout our community through a combination of our 12 Free Book boxes, our Free Book Friday read-alouds, and participation at various community events. David is shown with And Literacy for All President Mary Corrigan. Mary is dedicated to our mission of “Building family and community literacy one book at a time.”
Help us restock our supply of children's books.
Books are flying out of the Free Book Boxes at Franklin Park Elementary School, the Harlem Heights Community Charter School, the Quality Life Center in Fort Myers, Lakes Park Children's Garden, Camelot Park, SalusCare Children's Center for Growth, Jefferson Park, The Cape Coral Yacht Club Park, the William (Bill) Austen Youth Center, and All Faiths Unitatian Congregation. They provide books to children and families who might not otherwise have access to them.
We obtain our books through a combination of book donations from individuals as well as from organizations such as schools and libraries, and by purchasing them from discount booksellers. We use any monetary donations to purchase books and buy materials to build and maintain the Free Book boxes.
Free Book Box in Camelot Park in Cape Coral
Check out this video of us installing our Free Book Box, sponsored by Roelens Vacation Rentals. Koen Roelens' daughter Sofia decorated it beautifully. It is located in Camelot Park in southwest Cape Coral.
https://www.roelensvacations.com/for-the-community/ |
www.winknews.com/2018/10/19/tanglewood-elementary-student-starts-little-free-library-in-fort-myers/ Wink News coverage of our project with Girl Scout Evelin Rienzo of Troop 292. Her Troop helped build and decorated this Free Book Box in Jefferson Park. |
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Wink News coverage http://www.winknews.com/…/tanglewood-elementary-student-st…/
copy of News-Press coverage, and pictures of our project with Girl Scout Evelin Rienzo of Troop 292. It’s been a great experience to partner with the Girl Scouts to build, decorate and install our second Free Book Box together. We really admire Evelin's design creativity and the girls' eagerness participating in the construction of the box. We are excited to know that they share our mission: “To build family and community literacy one book at a time” by providing free access to a variety of books, especially for children. Note the picture of the Little Free Library patch on Evelin's vest. Girl Scout Troop #292 partnered with And Literacy For All (ALFA), to repurpose and decorate this newspaper vending box. It is located at the Children’s Garden in Lakes Regional Park. It is a source of Free Books for the children who visit the park and garden and supports the Girl Scouts’ community service objective and ALFA’s mission of “Building family and community literacy one book at a time.” andliteracyforall.com. Find it on the World Map at LittleFreeLibrary.org. https://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/
Our Library at the SalusCare Center for Growth is now on the world map at Littlefreelibrary.org. Check it out together with all of our registered locations. https://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/ In addition, SalusCare is holding a Book Drive beginning June 1st to collect gently used books! The donated books (children’s books and adult fiction/non-fiction) will be given to And Literacy for All. And Literacy for All provides literacy resources, education and programs to enrich lives and build community. In addition, they are installing Little Free Libraries all across Lee County, and they have installed one on SalusCare's Ortiz Campus near Building G (pictured here) In this era of e-readers, Kindles and iPads, we all have books at home gathering dust. Donate your books today at any SalusCare campus! |
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Second Graders at Harlem Heights Community Charter School are exploring their new summer reading books provided by And Literacy For All during the final Free Book Friday for this school year. We are looking forward to sharing more books when you come back for third grade after the summer break. |
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Here's a look at our Free Book Box production facility and warehouse. We are in the process of repurposing 30 or so News-Press vending boxes to be placed around Fort Myers in our continuing effort to increase access to free books. You might notice that we also repurposed our garage.
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Kids at The Quality Life Center decorating their Children's Home Libraries and choosing their first set of free books.
Redistributed more than 700 free books at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival as a part of our "Books for All" program.
This Free Book Box was donated by And Literacy for All to All Faiths Unitarian Congregation and placed on thier property for public use. All Faiths in turn "paid it forward" by donating funds for our next Free Book Box to be placed in a disadvantaged Ft. Myers community.
Children at the Harlem Heights Community Charter School are ready to choose their favorite titles from the Free Book Box at the entrance to their school.
First Free Book Friday at Harlem Heights Community Charter School. Each child in the kindergarten class went home with a free book to keep, read, and enjoy. Kids were very excited to have the opportunity to choose their own book. Next week is the first graders' turn!
Children at the Quality Life Center are enjoying their pick of free books from our Free Book Box located in front of the Center.
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Kids love to be read to.
Dr. Bethany Quisenberry, Principal at Franklin Park Elementaty School, is pictured with Mary Corrigan at the installation of our Free Book Box.
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And Literacy For All would like to thank hometown authors Brian and Lauren Franz for generously donating signed hardcover copies of children’s books from their Zoo Avenue series. We read three of the series to groups of children at Harlem Heights Community Charter School during our weekly Free Book Friday events this month. Everyone enjoyed these engaging and fun stories. Afterward, the books were given to each teacher to be part of their classroom libraries. Also, each child got to choose an age appropriate book to take home to add to their home library.