Each year, we reach out to all the educators and community leaders who are registered with First Book Canada to hear from them about the kids they serve, the challenges they face in their communities, the impact of the books and resources, and more. We’ve taken out some of the... Read more
Rebeca Delgado is the Programs Coordinator at First Book Canada. Can you tell us a bit about what you do as Programs Coordinator? As Programs Coordinator, there are 3 major things that I oversee. 1: For the First Book Canada Marketplace, I oversee the book purchases – making sure we have a variety of... Read more
The Ontario Government has recently proposed increases to the class sizes for grades 4 and up. The largest increase will be seen at the high school level, with classes jumping up to on average 28 students, and in some instances as high as 40 students. A larger class size means... Read more
Grace Mahas is the Communications and Events Intern managing the 2018 – 2019 Raptors 905 Reading Challenge and the 8th Annual RBC Capital Markets Pongapalooza. Do you want to start with introducing yourself? My name is Grace, I’m the Communications and Events Intern at First Book Canada. I do a... Read more
What is the Raptors 905 Reading Challenge? The Raptors 905 Reading Challenge is a reading program that gives books to kids. It is celebrating its fifth year. The program started with DeMar DeRozan who partnered with First Book Canada to support 10 schools to read 10 books over the course of 10 weeks! It is now being supported by the Compugen Green4Good Program, Bank of Montreal, and Raptors 905. This... Read more
Gurdeep Dhaliwal is the Strategic Alliances Manager at First Book Canada. When you first started, what was that like? I completed the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College, and through that the opportunity to apply for an internship with First Book Canada came up. From there, I was hired on as a Strategic Alliance Coordinator. It was just... Read more
In October, First Book Canada sent out a request to all members who had participated in a program this year to send in photos of receiving or distributing the books. We were overwhelmed by the response and received so many photos that it was difficult to fit them into the... Read more
As this year draws to an end, First Book Canada is taking a look back at some of our top ten moments of 2018! We’ve had the opportunity to provide books to kids from coast to coast to coast with the help of our dedicated members, partners, and volunteers. We’d like... Read more
Tom Best is the Executive Director of First Book Canada. When Tom started, there were only about 125 registered members. He’s seen it grow from this concentrated number to a steadily growing network of over 9,000 members. Can you start with telling me a bit about your day to day? The nice thing is that... Read more
Remember the first book that you felt was speaking directly to you? The first book that made you feel seen? Or the first book that helped you through a difficult experience? Maybe you got all that from one book or from multiple books, over the course of your childhood. Imagine... Read more