1BookBG is shooting for the stars this year.
The program, which started in Bowling Green in 2015, returns with a space theme to coincide with the total solar eclipse.
Crim Elementary teachers Stacey Higgins and Michelle Thomas gave a presentation on this year’s plans at Tuesday’s Bowling Green City Schools Board of Education meeting.
The theme is “Out of This World Pioneers.”
Last year, 1BookBG expanded its partnerships to include private schools in the city, the Bowling Green State University library and more local businesses, Higgins said.
“We saw student engagement levels to a point we had not seen since the very first year of the program in 2015,” she said.
Last year, more than 115 donors gave $7,000 that allowed for the purchase of 1,600 books so that every student had their own book, Thomas said.
Donations allowed weekly prizes, and 15 business were “mission sites” to promote student and family interaction, she said.
Jerry Pallotta, author of the “Who Would Win?” series, visited the schools and the Wood County District Public Library.
“Our entire community won last year,” Higgins said.
In cooperation with BGSU’s In the Round Native American Creative Speaker Series, the county library, and the BG Schools Foundation’s Eclipse Committee, this year’s program will show all the ways the stars align, she said.
In the Round author Traci Sorrell will visit the BGSU and county libraries on March 22-23. She is the author of “Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer.”
The story follows Ross’s journey from being the only girl in a high school math class to becoming a teacher to pursuing an engineering degree, joining the top-secret Skunk Works division of Lockheed, and being a mentor for Native Americans and young women interested in engineering.
1BookBG’s goal is to provide space pioneer biographies and reference books to all students in grades K-5 from the Who Was/What Was/Where Is series, which will support connections between science, literacy and the arts.
Activities will be coordinated with the eclipse committee.
Local businesses that sign up to be “mission stops” will feature constellations to be filled with student stars, Higgins explained.
Funds remaining from last year – which was a record for donations – will be used to purchase biographies for all students, Thomas said.
Even with a discount from bulk purchases, additional funds are needed to purchase books, which will cost $3-$5 per copy. Donations and gifts will be used to purchase additional books as incentives and rewards, she said.
“Astro Expo” is a family-theme event planned on April 23.
To donate to the nonprofit 1BookBG, send checks to BG Schools Foundation, P.O. Box 784, Bowling Green, OH 43402. Put 1BookBG in the memo line.
