Dr. Seuss Throwdown Seeks To Collect 100,000 Books from Local Communities

Are you ready for a Dr. Seuss Throwdown?

Read to Grow and United Way of Coastal Fairfield County are issuing a challenge to Fairfield County to collect 100,000 new and gently used books for children in need by June 1. We are halfway there but we need your help.

This Dr. Seuss Community Challenge is being Championed by Lynn Abramson, Genevieve Halloran, and Myra Healy. Lynn Abramson, United Way of Coastal Fairfield County Board Member has a master’s degree in English literature and knows the importance of reading.

“I am very excited to be part of the Dr. Seuss Throwdown and I love to see kids get excited about reading,” stated Abramson. “Literacy rich homes are critical to achieving the important measurement of reading at grade level by grade three, which is a key indicator of a child’s future academic success.” 

Corporations, schools, service groups, sports teams, places of worship and the community-at-large are encouraged to join the challenge. Collecting books is a simple way to make a big difference in children’s lives. Turn your book drive into a competition between friends, neighbors, or co-workers to collect as many children’s books as possible.

One of the organizations that have embraced the Dr. Seuss Throwdown is the Junior League of Eastern Fairfield County, which has already donated more than 10,000 books towards the goal. Genevieve Halloran, President of the group has encouraged league members to become part of the challenge.

“Reaching 10,000 books is a great milestone for us," said Halloran. “The book drives are great because it allows each of our members to run their own book drive which adds to our collective total. One of our organization’s focus areas is literacy and in addition to collecting the books, we like to educate our community partners and raise awareness that the books are available and how people can access them.”

Book donations will support the Books for Kids Read at Home Initiative, a partnership of statewide literacy organization Read to Grow and United Way of Coastal Fairfield County. The project was created last year to provide age-appropriate books to underserved children in the United Way’s 12-town region. Books are distributed to area children to help support their literacy development and to engage parents in reading aloud at home.

Myra Healy, Coordinator of the book drives for the partnership helps people get a book drive going and helps people get books for their homes. 

“Because of this challenge, there has always been enough books to fulfill the requests we get,” stated Healy. “Parents can access the books online and I am there to help facilitate the process to make it easy for everyone.”

A portion of books collected by the throwdown will go to children before the school year ends to help combat the “summer slide,” a high level of academic loss that occurs with students who do not read during the summer months. Books are also provided to families and programs that serve children in United Way's service area to build home libraries.

To donate books or to learn more about you can be a part of the throwdown book collection efforts in Fairfield County, contact Myra Healy, Books for Kids Read at Home Initiative at mhealy@readtogrow.org or 203-488-6800.