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Boys and Girls Clubs debuts new library, reading rooms
Bill Conrad / Staff Photo: Matthew Fuhriman reads to children Thursday at the Plano branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Collin County.
By Bill Conrad, bconrad@starlocalnews.com
More than 300 children routinely take advantage of the learning opportunities provided by the Plano branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Collin County. Now, thanks to Capital One and The Heart of America Foundation, students will have access to a new library, two new reading rooms and hundreds of new library books.
The rooms were unveiled Thursday morning, and if early returns are any indication, they will be a success, said Boy and Girls Clubs Branch Director Karen Johnson.
“Now that we have specialized reading rooms, the kids will have more access to books,” Johnson said. “The teens have their own area to get them more interested in reading, so that is exciting. When one of the teens said that this was like the tables they had a Starbucks, I said ‘yes.’ The teens can now read without having to be in the little kid’s area.”
In addition to the reading rooms, each child is given two books to take home. Johnson said many of the children she sees in Plano do not have adequate reading materials, a problem that Flynn said he has seen nationwide.
“Studies have shown that lower-income households only have one or two age-appropriate books per child, compared to 50 or more for middle-income families and 200 or more for higher-income families,” Flynn said. “There is a cognitive learning hurdle that happens between third and fourth grade where students are making the leap from learning to read to reading to learn. As you can imagine, children who are in homes with fewer resources and don’t have access to learning centers are at a greater disadvantage.”
Since 1997, The Heart of America Foundation has donated 3 million books to schools and organizations across the country. Of that total, 1.2 million have come from Capital One.
“One of Capital One’s philosophies is to make a huge difference in education,” said Capital One’s Monica Shortino. “So we provide corporate funding to The Heart of America Foundation, so they can purchase the books and the supplies to do the makeover. Our associates also come in to do some of the heavy lifting.”
In addition to providing funding and the labor required to convert the reading spaces, Capital One employees also taught financial literacy classes, which fit in nicely with the summer schedule maintained by Johnson and her staff.
“We offer a summer camp program where we offer what we call Smart Moves,” Johnson said. “We have a computer lab and field trips, as well as a gym and arts and crafts. We offer workshops throughout the summer and Capital One was able to help out with that today. We need to keep the kid’s brains going throughout the summer, and we do that by making sure they read something each day. Having a library like we have now will really help us out.”
Capital One is one of the major corporate sponsors that donates money and volunteer hours to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Collin County, said the clubs’ Executive Director Mike Simpson, who added that as Collin County grows, the need for additional branches will grow along with it.
“Corporate partners are one of our major sources of funding,” Simpson said. “Frankly without great partners like Capital One, we wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things we do. It is not only the cost of the raw materials; it is the volunteer hours and all of the employees that give back to the community.”
The Plano branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Collin County is located in the Douglass Community Center, 1111 H Ave.
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