A mountain of books was piled high outside ADT’s corporate headquarters in Boca Raton.
The books are going home with elementary students in Palm Beach County this summer.
Organizers believe they collected 10,000 new and used books.
It’s all part of an effort to keep kids learning and fight what’s called the “summer slide.”
“It’s very well documented in the research that if kids don’t stay actively engaged over the summer, enriching themselves; whether it’s going to museums, reading, writing, practicing the things they learned, they actually come back to school having lost upwards of three to six months of learning,” explained Superintendent Dr. Robert Avossa.
Volunteer Florida organizes this #BringABook project. Employees from the security company ADT collected books for three weeks.
An ADT spokesperson said many employees have children in public schools, so it was an easy cause to get behind.
“To sit back and say, ‘Hey look, when we pool together we can do something really special.’ It's a very personal, very emotional thing,” Alex Price explained.
The books are going to the Literacy Coalition who will distribute them throughout the area.
“When the public sector, the non-profit community, and the private sector work together with enthusiasm and intention, the results can be extraordinary,” said Volunteer Florida CEO Chester Spellman.
