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Thank you for your time and commitment towards increasing book access in our community
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OUR MISSION
Book Fairies sources and redistributes books to under-resourced communities on Long Island, NYC and internationally to provide equitable opportunities for children to learn, grow, and thrive.
OUR VISION
All children have equitable access to books so they can learn, grow, and thrive.
2023 Goals
Goals help us stay on track and ensure that we are making progress towards Book Fairies long-term vision and stay focused on our mission.
BOOK FAIRIES FACTS
Our Background
- Founded in 2012 – Celebrating 10 years in May of 2022
- 3.5 million books distributed since inception
- Average 550,000 books per year distributed
- Distributes to title I schools and nonprofit organizations
- Over 1,200 volunteers yearly
- Provides over 180 volunteer opportunities a week to individuals with developmental disabilities
- Books are collected through drives organized with schools, businesses, and organizations.
- Through upcycling, resources that already exist are shifted from those who no longer need them to those who need them most.
- Book Fairies has four program areas: Children’s Programs, Community Programs, Global Literacy, and Special Needs Partnerships.
- Book Fairies is committed to creating partnerships that enable us all to serve more powerfully, working together to break the cycle of poverty that stems from illiteracy. Because every child deserves equitable access to books so they can Learn, Grow, and Thrive.
Why We Exist
- Book Desert: a geographic area (country, state, county, city, neighborhood, home) where printed books and other reading material are relatively hard to obtain, particularly without access to an automobile or other form of transportation.
- Lack of access to and the cost of books are key contributors to illiteracy, which feeds the cycle of poverty.
- Many studies have shown that having access to books, and especially books in the home, helps ensure that kids have the tools they need to succeed – not just in school, but in life
- It’s a well-established fact that the inequities in schools—lower tax base to support schools in impoverished areas, shortages of qualified teachers, lack of books and materials—hurt children in high-poverty communities. The data from the National Household and Education Survey (NHES) also demonstrates that children from households with limited resources enter school at a disadvantage.
- 94% of teachers use their own money to provide books & resources for their students
Literary Stats
- 1 in 4 New Yorkers are functionally illiterate
- In middle-income neighborhoods the ration of books per child is 13-1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1-age-appropriate book for every 300 children
- $232 billion a year in health care costs is lost to low adult literacy skills
- 75% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate
- 80% of pre-schools and after school programs serving children in need have no age-appropriate books for the children they serve
- 64% of all 4th graders in NYS read below grade level; data shows 2/3 of those students will likely end up in jail or on welfare
- 1/2 of children from low-income communities start first grade up to 2 years behind their peers.
- Children growing up in homes with at least twenty (20) books get three years more schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents’ education, occupation, and class.
- There is almost a 90% probability that a child will remain a poor reader at the end of the fourth grade if the child is a poor reader at the end of first grade.
- According to the National Commission on Adult Literacy: The US could save $1.4 Billion per year in reduced costs from crime if the High School completion rate increased by just 1% for all men aged 20-60.
In The News
Book Fairies Donates 5 Millionth Book to Amityville Student
Book Fairies, the Freeport-based nonprofit dedicated to combatting illiteracy by giving kids books, donated its 5 millionth book to one lucky Northwest Elementary School student in Amityville on Nov 14. […]
LI Nonprofit Gives Away Books To Children In Need
The Long Island nonprofit Book Fairies is sparking a love of reading in children. Amy Zaslansky, the founder of Book Fairies, spoke about their mission to give books to children […]
Where To Donate Books, Toys and Baby Items On Long Island
A child who has outgrown driving Barbie around in a pink convertible can donate the toy to someone who will be happy to take the doll on a new road trip. […]
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