The Pages for Pets summer season reading program at Berks County libraries runs June 19 through July 28, 202. (Courtesy of Reading Library District)
The Pages for Pets program intends to get Berks County kids checking out for a cause this summer season.
From June 19 through July 28, youth who go to libraries throughout the county will be asked to start logging the minutes they check out with an objective of obtaining an overall of 500,000 minutes countywide. If the kids put in the work, the Reading Library District will money the adoption charge of an animal from the Animal Rescue League of Berks County in Cumru Township.
“We are going to update our numbers every Monday,” said Marissa Guidara, youth services expert for the Reading Library District. “If you go into the library, they are going to have a tracking poster that they will update once a week and we’ll also have that up on the website as well so kids can kind of see the progress we are making together.”
Guidara said she had the concept for the program in mind for a while.
“Our community is very animal-loving, and I always sort of wanted to tap into that,” she said. “This program offers a chance for the libraries to work together and interact.
“I also just wanted to tap into empowering the children as advocates. This will sort of be the first time some of the kids will feel that empowerment that the things that they do, when they work together, can help make a difference.”
The ARL will reveal which animal got embraced as an outcome of the kids’s efforts on Aug. 1.
Children or their moms and dads can browse the web to www.berkslibraries.org/kids/P4P to download a sheet to log their reading times, which will require to be developed into their public libraries.
There are 25 Reading Library District — a state classification — places throughout Berks. They consist of the 23 locations of the Berks County Public Libraries System along with the independent Wyomissing Public Library and Oley Valley Community Library.
In addition to Pages for Pets, each of the places will be hosting their own summer learning programs, with a complete schedule of complimentary activities.
In 2013 the ARL released its Book Buddies program where trainees might hone their reading abilities by entering the shelter to check out books aloud to the cats. It went viral and even made a Berks teen recognition from a state education organization.
José Joel Delgado-Rivera, the ARL’s primary interactions officer, said a modified version of the program had actually been relaunched last summer season.
“We encourage families to bring their own books and bring something that the kids will be comfortable reading to the animals,” said Alison Kleinsmith, interactions and advancement expert at the ARL. “And just know that that program can count toward the minutes for the reading program as well. So I would encourage families to bring along their reading logs.”
