by Mary Auker
A focus on building our volunteer force is paying off already with five new volunteers on board. Connie Gruen is officially our volunteer coordinator and she has been busy.
A sample week for Cops ‘n’ Kids (CnK)
The last full week of January was a busy week that began with a “cleaning party” Sunday afternoon. These afternoons are fun as we clean, label, sort and pack the hundreds of beautiful books that have been donated and toss around ideas for upcoming events.
Monday CnK participated in the MLK Day of service at St John the Evangelist, where, with the help of parishioners, we prepared hundreds of books for distribution in just two hours. Tuesday and Wednesday we built awareness for our partnership with the Have a Heart Foundation at the Newtown Athletic Club. Thursday evening we participated at Partners in Print, a family literacy night at Snyder-Girotti Elementary School in Bristol Borough.
After catching our breath, we will be reading to the children at the William Penn Center Preschool on Tuesday, January 29. Officer Yeager of the Falls Township Police Department will be with us to autograph books for the children.
We are grateful to Lower Makefield Women’s Club and Bucks County Neighbors for having completed book drives for us. Bins at our six permanent drop off sites for book donations fill up continuously as awareness for the program builds momentum.
We look forward to our new partnership with United Way of Bucks County beginning in March. We are so grateful for their offer of office space at their Hood Boulevard location: a place volunteers can work to get books ready for distribution.
Printing costs and rent for our storage facility continue to be our biggest expenses. If you can help with a donation, it is always appreciated. Checks can be made out to “AAUW Makefield Area PA Branch” with a notation for “Cops ‘n’ Kids” and sent to Kathy Quinn. You can also donate by credit card at the website copsnkidsdelval.org.
It’s an amazing initiative and the team is terrific! We are grateful that AAUW adopted this project!