Barclays and First Book Bring New Books to Newark

Last week, volunteers from Barclays made their fourth visit to Vailsburg Elementary School, one of North Star Academy Charter School’s Newark, NJ campuses, to host a Barclays reading party.

The volunteers started their morning as part of Vailsburg’s Community Circle, a school-wide gathering that is a core part of the North Star culture. After Community Circle, volunteers visited kindergarten classrooms to read four different books to 89 kindergarten students.

The titles included Arthur’s Reading Race, Barack Obama: Out of Many, One, Jamaica and Brianna, and the Barclays special edition of Bunny Money. At the end of the reading time, the kindergartners were excited to discover that they were each taking home copies of the four brand new books in a Barclays backpack.

The reading party at Vailsburg Elementary was the first in the 2012 series of Barclays reading parties. Volunteers will continue to visit K-2 students in the New York metropolitan area throughout the year, bringing new books to every school.

Since 2009, Barclays and First Book have distributed more than 75,000 new books to children in need across the country. In addition to hosting reading parties, Barclays is also working with First Book to develop the financial literacy and college readiness sections on the First Book Marketplace, launch a new program with Teach for America’s New York region, and provide college readiness grants to 10 middle and high schools. Each element of our partnership with Barclays is helping First Book to reach more students with more valuable educational resources.