MILWAUKEE — TMJ4 and our parent company E.W. Scripps, in partnership with the Scripps Howard Fund, helped give back to Milwaukee children on Monday.
$10,000 raised in part by many of TMJ4's viewers, helped give the gift of reading to children at Next Door Milwaukee.
During a Scholastic Book Fair, early childhood education students were able to take home two free books.
The money to purchase those books was donated during TMJ4's "If you Give a Child a Book Campaign."
"Anytime that you can get books into children's hands and expose them to more in the literacy world is critical and just seeing them excited about books when it's toys, electronics these days. Early literacy is so critical to long-term education and long-term success in life," said Heather Gram, President of the Next Door Foundation.
Parent Lenisa Lee, who is also an instructional coach at Next Door, said free books like these help her find time to bond with her babies and expand their vocabularies.
"Being able to take that time away from the screen time allows for that quality time and just sitting in a lap together and just smiling, enjoying book reading together, it's an awesome experience," said Lee.
Books for Kids Program Manager Jacquelyn Shanti said these fairs can open up the minds of children to the outside world.
"This is the way that the world opens up to them and for our children to get free books and build a library in their home is just the most wonderful thing that could happen and we're really thankful (to) Scripps and to Channel 4 for this opportunity," said Shanti.
Also notable at the fair was the number of books with diverse stories to tell.
"Representation is absolutely critical and I feel like that is something that, as a community, we've done a better and better job of - making sure kids do see themselves represented in literature," said Gram.
If you're interested in volunteering at Next Door Foundation to read to children, you can sign-up atNextDoorMKE.org.
