‘Very rewarding.’ State High students work to provide free books to preschoolers
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- State College students visited local Head Start classrooms to hand out free books.
- The events marked a collaboration between the Pennsylvania Key Club and a nonprofit.
- State High Key Club students hope the events inspire similar visits across Pennsylvania.
State College Area High School students are working with the Pennsylvania Key Club to help provide free books to children in need.
Key Club members from State High visited the district’s Ferguson Township and Grays Woods elementary schools on Nov. 10 to lead art activities, read to students and hand out books to keep at no cost. The visits, completed in partnership with the nonprofit LiTEArary Society, aim to kick off a series of similar events across Pennsylvania to support children enrolled in Head Start programs.
Last week’s visits marked a full-circle moment for Heidi Egerer, a State High senior serving as the Pennsylvania Key Club’s district governor. She said squeezing into child-sized chairs to read and interacting with children in local Head Start classrooms was rewarding following months of work preparing for the initiative’s launch.
“It was truly just a remarkable experience. I’ve never been able to do something like that,” Egerer told the Centre Daily Times. “It was such a unique opportunity for us to connect with the community and give back to them. I remember being young, sitting on those rainbow carpets and smiling during read-alouds. Being able to give back now, in my final year of high school, was very rewarding.”
The classroom visits aim to combat book deserts, or regions in which disadvantaged children are not able to reliably access literary materials or education. That is a key goal for the West Virginia-based LiTEArary Society, the world’s largest youth-led nonprofit, whose partnership with the Pennsylvania Key Club precedes Egerer’s term as district governor.
Egerer said she was eager to continue the partnership with the LiTEArary Society — pronounced “li-tea-rary” — and kick off a series of classroom visits in her own backyard. She hopes Key Club chapters across Pennsylvania will follow State High’s lead to host their own visits with Head Start classrooms in their areas.
Through careful coordination with the LiTEArary Society and the Pennsylvania Key Club’s Youth Serving Youth committee, clubs across Pennsylvania can purchase books at a heavy discount to provide copies for Head Start children. State High’s club chose books from author Mo Willems’ “Elephant & Piggie” series, but individual clubs can customize their events as they see fit, Egerer said.
After laying the groundwork, Egerer said she hopes future events will help Pennsylvania’s Key Clubs make long-lasting impacts in Head Start classrooms.
“We’re hoping to inspire a love of reading for preschoolers coming from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Egerer said. “We hope to show how we can collectively come together and end book deserts for young children in Pennsylvania.”
Egerer plans to pursue a degree in international business after graduating from State High, but service opportunities will remain a key focus. She hopes her tenure as district governor — the most senior youth leadership role on the Pennsylvania Key Club’s executive board — will set an example for students who might one day follow in her footsteps.
“I’m the first district governor from the State College area,” Egerer said. “It’s really cool being an example. I’m the first one from this area. I know students won’t quite understand it at their age, but I hope they know that they could one day do this and make an impact, too. Being able to give back to a community like that is a remarkable feeling.”
Community members are welcome to donate to the LiTEArary Society to help fund the partnership’s book giveaways, Egerer said. The nonprofit offers dedicated donation links on its website at liteararysociety.org/donations.
Rania Zuri, the LiTEArary Society’s founder and CEO and a sophomore at Stanford, said her organization’s collaboration with the Pennsylvania Key Club shows how students across the commonwealth can produce meaningful change in their communities.
“By addressing the critical issue of book deserts and the effect on disadvantaged preschoolers, our partnership with Pennsylvania Key Club aims to give children in Pennsylvania Head Start the opportunity to develop a lifelong love of reading from an early age and receive a brand-new book of their very own to take home,” Zuri wrote in a statement.
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