KYLA LCA Juniors Collecting Children's Books for CASA
Posted
Staff Report-
CASA, the organization providing a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate for children who need a voice in court, and Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy, are teaming up to collect and distribute books for children in the program.
Lakeland Christian Academy juniors Megan Lang, Ali Slabaugh, Joel Haines and Emily White have been instrumental in developing the idea to help collect new or gently used children’s books from the community and area businesses.
The team is calling their KYLA service project “Books 4 CASA.” The goal is to collect books appropriate for children ages infant to 12 years old.
The books will be utilized by the 56 CASA volunteers to supply local children who have been abused/neglected and involved in custody disputes in Kosciusko County. The CASA volunteers will use the books to help build comforting relationships and supplement an important learning experience with the children in the program. CASA has served more than 600 children in the community in the past three years.
In 2010, a report from a Scholastic study questioning more than 17,000 young people, revealed a strong link between young people’s reading ability and their access to books at home. Eighty percent of children who read above the expected level for their age had books of their own.
The report also found that young people who did not own their own books were also three times more likely to agree with the statements “reading is boring” and “I only read in class”.
Children from low-income families have literacy scores of more than 40 points lower than their high-income counterparts.
For more information on how to make a donation or get involved, go to the CASA website, www.casachildren.com, and click on the Book Collection tab at the left, or call the CASA office at 574-372-2401.
