Middle Georgia organizations team up to give away free books

Friends of the Library Macon is teaming up with United Way of Central Georgia to give children books for the summer.

Until showtime at 9 p-m.

For more information on tickets and restrictions for the show, go to macon centreplex dot org.

Although friends of the library in macon could not have their april book sale this year, they are finding a new way to share the joy of books with children in the community.

41nbc's peyton lewis has details.

0:24 0:31 1:11 "we're for literacy and what better than to give the books to the children of macon."

Friends of the library in macon is teaming up with united way of central georgia to give children books for the summer.

They will host a drive-through event saturday, so families can pick up books.

President of friends of the library, jack cartwright, says the organization had to get creative with how to get rid of thier books this year.

"we have books, books are coming in and we have to have a safe way of getting books to people, and especially the children of macon.

We're all concerned and we all have a love for what's going on with kids sitting around at home, and sure they have computers but we have about 6-7000 books."

*standup* when you come through the line a volunteer will hand you a bag of books like this one, all you have to do is stay in your car and let the volunteer know your grade level or age so they can give you a bag of books best suited for you.

Cartwright says each bag is a surprise, handpicked by volunteers.

"we tried to bag up books of 10 or 11 different types of books.

They might get a book on.

Parakeets or on cats, they may get one on geography, alabama, azerbaijan, alaska.

They may get a couple of fiction books, i mean i still love the berenstein bears, or curious george, i hope somebody gets a curious george or something."

Jolee henson, a volunteer coordinator at united way of central georgia, hopes the event will encourage summer reading.

"it's really good to be able to give those 7000 free books away to the community during this time because the summer slide is so important.

We really need to have our children reading on grade level by 3rd grade because friends of the library hopes to host library hopes friends of the friends of the library hopes to host sidewalk sales in the coming months, to give the community more summer reading opportunities.

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