Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 16, 2010!
It has been my pleasure to be involved with this great organization and when I received this email I knew it had to be shared. Chelsea’s Tree a book for young step children is the book I showcase each year at these events. I’ve attended three in Waynesboro and 1 in Charleston, S.C. and it is always a pleasure to see so many police officers on hand to help with this great undertaking.
Please feel free to contact Mark if you are interested in presenting your books at Book ‘Em this fall or put the date on your calendar for an amazing day of meeting the authors of such a wide range of interesting books.
Charleston S.C. Book 'Em Event 2008
From Mark P. Kearney
7th Annual Book ‘Em literacy event
We started and held our first ever Book ‘Em in October 2004. We had 46 authors in attendance that first year and we had 75 authors one of the years.
We are the first book event of our kind, to my knowledge, to be held and hosted by a police department. And, if I’m correct, we are also the first book event that has a goal of spreading around the world. This is due to our cause.
Our cause is to highlight the connection between illiteracy/poor reading skills and crime rates. Besides our annual Book ‘Em event, which we are working to spread to select locations around the world, I have started about half a dozen literacy programs that I’m working to spread to law enforcement agencies around the world. The proceeds raised from this event are returned to various literacy programs which help to reduce crime and hopefully improve society as a whole. We have a reading program that we started 5 school years ago where police officers go into elementary school classes to read to children. During the year, we’ll read to many classes from Pre-K to 5th grade in the 4 local elementary schools here in Waynesboro.
We have another program where several publishing companies donate books. In turn I have gone into all the English classes for the local 7th graders, 8th graders, 9th graders, 10th graders and 11th graders and gave monthly talks and at each talk each student receives a free book. Over the past several years I’ve passed out over 25,000 books to these students, as well as students in other schools, prisoners at 6 prisons, and many individuals.
I’ve gone into 6 prisons/jails so far to talk to prisoners on how they can help themselves through reading and education. I also donate books to the prison libraries. On my last visit, I was able to give them roughly 500 books. I’ve had individuals released from jail attend Book ‘Em events in the past.
I have other programs I’m working on as well that target “at-risk” teens.
I’m also working with young, elementary school children where I’m giving them free books and I’m also taking groups of them out on nature walks to help promote their love of nature.
Nothing happens overnight, so I hope to continue working on the expansion of Book ‘Em and my literacy programs the rest of my life if I can.
We hope you will consider attending because you can help us to make an even bigger difference in positively shaping the future of our country. Our goal is to improve society through the promotion of literacy. Please let me know if you have any questions at all about our event or our literacy programs.
Officer Mark Kearney
Crime Prevention Officer
Waynesboro Police Department
kearneymp@ci.waynesboro.va.us
(540) 942-6683
www.bookemfoundation.org
Books for step children are available at MyWholeFamily.com
