More than £200 has been donated to the Times’ Books For Schools campaign from generous community groups and readers.
Cheddar Vale Lions Club, The Rotary Club of Portishead and Weston Soroptomists are among the groups which have donated to the appeal.
Waterstones also added its support by offering a 10 per cent discount on the books purchased with the vouchers.
Children’s authors donated their publications to the appeal and scores of readers have given us second-hand books to be passed on to primary pupils.
The Times would like to thank everyone who has donated so far.
We launched the Books For Schools campaign in October last year to ensure cash-strapped schools were able to provide new books to pupils in the wake of cutbacks.
MORE: Support our new campaign to provide more books to schools.
Over the past seven months the Times has given out 500 books to schools and its sister paper, the Weston Mercury, has also donated a further 500.
Editor Tom Wright would like to thank all our generous readers and supporters.
He said: “We have been overwhelmed at the amount of books, vouchers and support we have received since the launch of the appeal. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far.
“It’s great to see the community coming together to support such a worthy cause and we hope pupils are enjoying the new books they have received.
“We want to continue donating books for as long as we can, so please give generously to enable schools to provide a wider range of books to their pupils.”
Children’s publisher Usborne has also supported the Times’ campaign by offering schools a selection of free books for holding sponsored reads.
More: Schools can win scores of new books for pupils.
Reading is a vital life skill and evidence shows children who can read well do better at school in all subjects and have more career opportunities in later life. Reading for pleasure can also help children to develop imaginations, empathy and social skills.
The Times is keen to donate 100 books to a primary school in North Somerset each month, but we need your donations.
Books and gift vouchers can be dropped in to Clevedon Community Bookshop, in Copse Road, Portishead Town Council’s office in Folk Hall, High Street, and the Times office in Waterloo Street, Weston.
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