Free book project launched in Aylesbury supporting the underprivileged

The team at Stoke Mandeville Stadium (SMS) are working with the Children’s Book Project to tackle book poverty among the young.

Aylesbury residents are encouraged to play their part by dropping off any unwanted, but high quality books, they have lying around at home.

SMS states, book ownership has been directly linked with improved mental health, while reading fluency itself has a significant impact on children’s successful progression through education.

The Children’s Book Project is a national endeavour looking to tackle ‘book poverty’, giving every child the opportunity to actually own their book.

Residents can drop off the books they’ve read or no longer need at a book bin in the stadium.

Guy Baber, SMS contact manager, said: “We’re delighted to link up with the Children’s Book Project, helping them with their important work of providing books to children who may be currently missing out on this crucial element of a young person’s educational development.

“We will be hosting the book bins from 23rd May to 10th June 2022, so if you’re someone with unwanted, but good quality, children’s books in your home, please pop along to one of our centres and give the gift of reading.”

The Children’s Book Project was registered as a charity in 2019, it won the Queen’s Award for Volunteering in 2020 and to date has donated over 600,000 books across the UK.

Charity spokesperson, Kirstin Knell, said: “We are over the moon to be supported by Stoke Mandeville Stadium, a centre that provides such an important way for the local community to get together.

"Every book donated by families will be gifted on by our volunteers to children with few of their own.

"We’re so looking forward to seeing the results of everyone’s spring sort of their bookshelves and sharing the very real impact these books have had.”

SMS is operated by the More Community Leisure Trust in partnership with Serco Leisure and on behalf of WheelPower, the Aylesbury-based, national organisation for wheelchair sports.