I know we said we were going to wrap up the our bookless book drive on Wednesday, but I never was good with deadlines, so please bear with me one more time.
Each year, recipients of Times 91原创 literacy grants send in reports proving that they spent the money the way they said they would. Call it due diligence.
Most of the reports come from the schools that make up the bulk of the recipients 鈥� 180 of them this year 鈥� and mostly they鈥檙e made up of receipts. Dry stuff. Those bills of sale can be illuminating, though, which is what came to mind while trolling through this year鈥檚 paperwork. For example, doesn鈥檛 it seem appropriate that children on leafy Thetis Island would be soaking up titles such as 颅Discovering the Hidden Life of the Forest and Plants of the 91原创 Northwest Coast?
Some purchases were tailored to particular needs. Braille Canada built literacy kits for blind children. The West Shore鈥檚 Royal Bay Secondary beefed up its dyslexia-friendly section, along with other areas. Victoria鈥檚 Victor School targeted the individual needs of 鈥渘on-verbal, medically fragile鈥� students.
Some schools emphasize remedial reading materials, the kind that pull kids up so they don鈥檛 get left behind, or books geared to particular reading levels so that students stay engaged.
Others go for the masses. 鈥淕raphic novels are flying off the shelves,鈥� reported Ecole Arbutus Global Middle School in Saanich. Arbutus was one of those recipients whose submission was augmented with a bit of imagery. The James Bay Community Project was another: 鈥淚t is a very common sight to see parents, grandparents, caregivers and volunteers with children on their laps and reading a story.鈥�
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Gratitude came through in many reports, along with a bit of anxiety over the effect the pandemic might have on future literacy grants. 鈥淓very bit helps in a time when funding is largely unavailable,鈥� was a typical 颅comment from an up-Island teacher-librarian.
鈥淲hile we all hope this 颅program is not impacted, I think we all know it is highly unlikely that it won鈥檛 be,鈥� a pair of Greater Victoria educators wrote. 鈥淩egardless of the tough decisions ahead, the Times 91原创 will always remain in our hearts as one of the biggest supporters of literacy on the Island.鈥�
Well, I would like to blush winningly at that comment, but the truth is that the newspaper is only the conduit for the generosity of others. The book drive has succeeded because of its donors, volunteers and sponsors.
As for the impact of the 颅pandemic, we鈥檒l see.
In a normal year, the Times 91原创 Literacy Society would distribute just over $300,000 in grants. About $165,000 of that would come from the TC鈥檚 big annual book sale, maybe a third in matching funds from a provincial government literacy fund and the rest in gifts from donors. With the pandemic pushing the sale off the table this year, the society had to lower its sights, hoping an appeal for direct donations would allow it to send at least a trickle of money to those recipients who depend on the grants for their literacy work.
The response has been far better than expected. A scaled-down version of our annual book drop-off saw the donated volumes go straight to Russell Books, which cut a cheque for $30,000 鈥� twice what was expected, despite some pretty steep expenses incurred by the business. And as of Wednesday afternoon, donations had brought the total to $71,344.55. That鈥檚 wonderful.
While the Sept. 30 deadline of the bookless book drive might have passed, the hope is donations will continue to come in. The more that is raised locally, the more that will arrive via those matching funds 颅distributed by Decoda Literacy Solutions.
We thank you. More importantly, so do the grant recipients.
