Volunteers pack up 35,000 books to distribute to kids across Pittsburgh region

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- At Acrisure Stadium on Tuesday, hundreds of people from dozens of different groups and organizations helped the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania pack and distribute over 35,000 books to children across our region.

This project is all to promote building up at-home libraries and increasing literacy in children.

"We know that all children deserve to have a great start in life," said Wendy Koch, the senior director of regional engagement for the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania. "By developing early literacy skills, they are going to be more successful in their academic career. And so that is really what we are here to do, just give every child a chance to have a head start in life."

The United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania serves several counties in our region and helps mobilize the caring power of individuals, businesses and organizations to help people meet basic needs.

One of the businesses helping sort and pack books at this event was the team from First National Bank.

"It is going fantastic," said Christine Mingone from FNB. "I think we have a good system going. We are working really hard to make sure all these orders are filled as efficiently as possible with a variety of books for all the individuals that will be receiving them."

In all, it took several hours to get all these books packed up and ready to go, and come Wednesday, more than 100 groups from around the region will pick up and distribute these boxes to children in their areas.