In recent years the UNM College of Education has found a way to spread holiday cheer by giving students new reading material.
Since 2011, the Center for Student Success has teamed up with the GSLA for an annual book drive, offering new and gently used books to K-12 students in the community. The “2015 Book Fiesta” has enticed donors by planting giant bins across campus for anyone willing to donate reading materials.
Associate Dean Deborah Rifenbary said the book drive began as a way to say thank-you to the cooperating teachers who have supported, supervised and helped the college grow.
“The thought process was: how can we give back to the community? How can we give to the cooperating teachers who have worked with our students, who have helped created a relationship between the college and the community?” Rifenbary said. “What can we do that is not only beneficial to those teachers, but the students in their classrooms?”
Since 2011, the CoE documented more than 1,000 books donated to more than 125 teachers and classrooms.
“The most logical thing was, let’s do something around reading and books,” Rifenbary said. “Let’s get the kids excited about having outside people come to read to them and get them excited about books.”
The 2015 book drive is running toward the end of the two-and-a-half-month donation period that began on Oct. 5 and ends Dec. 20, just before the college shuts down for Winter Break.
UNM Graduate Student Leader Alliance President Katrina Edelmann said the drive is on pace to surpass the number of book donations from the previous four drives in 2015 alone.
“We’re really hitting the social media really hard,” Edelmann said. “GSLA in particular, which has primarily taken responsibility for it the past couple of years.”
GSLA, recently changed from GPSA to avoid confusion with the university wide Graduate and Professional Student Association, has found a lot of success by using television monitors in the CoE, emails and social media posts to generate interest from people in the college.
Rifenbary and Edelmann said the bins are being filled with reading materials for all age groups — and it’s a healthy amount of donations at that. Picture books, young adult literature and even classics have found their way into the bins, appealing to the vast range of cooperating teachers who the CoE hopes to reach.
Rifenbary said that after the books are sorted by age group, the cooperating teachers to whom the books are donated are selected arbitrarily to receive the reading materials for their students.
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“The teachers’ names are drawn at random, and their classrooms are presented with backpacks full of books,” Rifenbary said. “Last year there were 35 classrooms with over 500 books.”
Rifenbary said the near-three-months donation period will reward the classrooms in late January and early February.
“It’s super important for kids who don’t normally have access to reading materials — what we call ‘literacy opportunities’ — at home, to receive a large array and diversity of reading materials,” Edelmann said.
The GSLA leader said representatives from each of the CoE departments have helped her tremendously in her first year as president. She said each representative will help her with the sorting and distribution process across the schools.
“We’re very grateful as a college to be getting so many donations,” Edelmann said.
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at assistantsports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
