Archive: Around Town

Saturday is Halloween, and the Lansing Faculty Association (LFA) has decided to celebrate with a 'Spooktacular Event.'  The event isn't a trick -- rather it is a treat for all Lansing school children.  LFA members will be holding a rummage sale to fund books that will be distributed around town so that kids can borrow them to read.  The idea is to create little libraries in a box.

"This year one of the district K-12 goals is improving literacy," explains LFA President Stacie Kropp.  "We wanted to tie in with that literacy goal, and we tried to think of a way to get books into the hands of kids.  We came up with the idea of creating Bobcat Book Boxes."

The boxes will be the Lansing blue and yellow colors with the bobcat paw, and they will be filled with books appropriate for all ages of Lansing students.  LFA members are looking for businesses with which to place the boxes.  The idea is that a child can pick a book out of any box to take home and read.  Books can be returned to any other box where another book may be chosen.

"The LFA wanted to give something back to the community again this year," Kropp says.  "A couple of years ago we donated back over $25,000 to the schools so we could retain summer school for the kids and pay for some bussing so the kids could continue to participate in after school clubs.  We didn't do anything last year.  This year we wanted to do something but we didn't have the liquid assets to just pay for something ourselves."

LFA is the Lansing School District's teacher union that currently includes almost 150 teachers, teaching assistants, and school nurses.  Members from all three schools plan to donate items for the rummage sale.  Some have volunteered trucks to carry large items.  They plan to arrive at the Town Hall at 7am Saturday to give members a chance to drop off their items.  The sale will begin at 9am and go through noon, to coincide with the Lansing Farmer's Market that is located there every Saturday.  The last 45 minutes of the sale will feature all you can fit in a bag for a dollar.  Anything that is not sold will be donated to the Salvation Army.


"We're hoping to raise enough money to buy all the books to fill the Bobcat Book Boxes," Kropp says.  "We're also looking for community businesses who want one in their business."

A couple of LFA members have donated the materials to make the boxes, and some of their spouses will volunteer to build them.  That means that all the money will go toward buying books.  Books will be chosen with recommendations by Lansing teachers and librarians, American Library Association book lists, and possibly from kids as well.

While the program is targeted at kids who attend Lansing schools, Kropp says that the boxes can be used by any kids that visit Lansing businesses.

"Obviously if we go into doctor's offices there will be Ithaca kids and Dryden kids there," she says.  "That's fine.  Kids are kids and kids need books.  We're teachers.  That's our job."

Kropp says the titles will be initially screened by LFA members, and that she expects that the boxes will be monitored throughout the year to make sure they keep filled.  She says she hopes the rummage sale will become an annual event so books can be bought each year to replenish the boxes.

----
v5i43