Kaiser Permanente Fresno grant contributes to a healthy love of books
A $7,500 grant from Kaiser Permanente Fresno keeps school libraries open in Central Unified School District for the summer.
Allison Harris brought her three young boys to the Polk Elementary School library recently to find some good books to read this summer.Her 7-year-old son Caleb was enthusiastic about the book he selected: a biography on President Theodore Roosevelt. He’s fascinated with presidential history, his mom said as Caleb rattled off a fact he learned from the last book he read: “Jimmy Carter had a peanut farm in Georgia.”
And with that Caleb and his brothers sat down at a table and began reading their books. Harris said having the school library open this summer is beneficial for her family because it’s just down the street from their house and a good way to beat the heat.
The Polk Elementary library, along with two other school libraries at El Capitan Middle School and Central East High School, are open this summer thanks to a $7,500 grant from Kaiser Permanente Fresno. About 2,500 children are expected to visit one of the school libraries this summer, which will be open through mid-July.
Central Unified is the only school district in Fresno County that does not have a public library. The closest libraries are about 15 miles away, and school district officials said many of their students don’t have transportation to get there.
Central Unified Superintendent Mark Sutton said the support from KP Fresno means a lot to the district’s students and their families.
“This is really their only opportunity to access books during the summertime,” he said. “We’re really fortunate that an organization like Kaiser is able to help us cover the expense of keeping these libraries open during the summer.”
The libraries are also a good way for students to continue learning and reading during the summer months, which Sutton says is frequently a time of year when students suffer from “summer slide.”
Research shows students who do not read over the summer suffer a significant decline in fluency, impacting their success when they return to school in the fall.
Javier Magana, 8, who will be in third grade this fall at Polk Elementary, said he loves to read and plans to check out as many books as he can this summer. He selected the book “The Red Wolf” recently and said he can’t wait to find out more about why the wolf is red: “That’s why you read the book because it tells you information.”Polk Elementary Librarian Rowena Bermio said the library is busy nearly every day with students taking summer school classes and the community stopping in to check out books.
“It’s really wonderful to have this library open so that we have books for children who might not have access to them anywhere else,” she said. “We’re continuing to cultivate that love of reading during the summer.”