Helping a child develop the skill and joy of reading can cost you less than $10.

Area elementary schools have begun fundraisers to purchase books for students to own and be able to read more at home. Preschool teacher Sonya Love-Smith at St. James School was inspired by Stewart Elementary teacher Lindsey Steen who is asking for donations of $9, to purchase nine books for each of her students from the Scholastic publisher. A simple Facebook post from Love-Smith then garnered an outpouring of support from local residents. So far Love-Smith has 34 sponsors for 50 students, which is about half of St. James’ student body.

Love-Smith explains why she is purchasing books for children, “Kids need to read it’s in every facet of our life and us as adults we’re busy doing activities sometimes we miss those opportunities to buy the books from Scholastic and get those books out. So this is just an easy way to get them out there help parents out and kids can either look at them by themselves at home which provide a lot of skills, pre-reading skills, or they can pull in an adult pull in a sibling and do that so that’s why I felt we could do that at St. James.”

If you are interested in learning more about the fundraiser or would like to donate call St. James school at 319-653-4504.