St. Paul Educators Union gives away 40,000 free books to kids and teachers
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Christmas came early Saturday for hundreds of Minnesota families and teachers.
Forty-thousand books were given away for free to anyone who wanted to stop by the Neighborhood House in St. Paul. Hundreds of people showed up to pick through all the free books, for toddlers, elementary students, and young adults.
"I got a Star Wars book," said Daniel Esguerra, a 14-year-old.
"I got lots of books, my favorite was Harry Potter," said Dylan Schaefer, a 12-year-old.
The books were free thanks to federal and local funding from The Saint Paul Federation of Educators and American Federation of Teachers.
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The unions offered families up to 30 books to bring home, and teachers could grab as many as 50 books to help fill their classroom libraries, which is an expense one teacher says would normally come out of their own pocket.
"It's a huge relief to say as a classroom teacher that I can get 50 free books into my classrooms for my students, that's just awesome!" said Seepha Vang, an educator within the St Paul Public School district. She was happy to see all the book options available to pick from, including books in other languages.
"Some of the books that were offered here are in Hmong and in Spanish and they were gone the first five minutes," said Vang.
Melanie Homan brought her kids and two friends to this event. Homan picked out several books she can use professionally as an early childhood occupational therapist.
"My hope is to use board books in my assessments, and then be able to give them to the families," said Homan.
The event was part of a national event for the American Federation of Teachers. They say their "Reading Opens the World" initiative has now distributed 2 million free books in just the past two years.
The local union chapter hopes they can host something like this again, after all the success Saturday's event had.
