Ben Narbuth Elementary students receive free books from teachers union
The Socorro American Federation of Teachers distributed over 900 books Wednesday morning to Ben Narbuth Elementary School students as part of the union's "Reading Opens the World" literacy initiative.
The AFT will continue to distribute books to four other elementary schools within the Socorro Independent School district and will have gifted over 3,000 books by the end of the campaign.
"Our theme for the whole project this year is 'Reading Opens the World,' and that's true," said Don Welch, the union's organizing and operations associate director. "No matter where you find yourself in life, you can grab a book and go back and ride a dinosaur or ride a flying dragon or be a king or a prince or a Boy Scout or Winnie the Pooh, whoever you want to be. And so we think it's important to stimulate the imagination as well as educate."
The organization has gifted 250,000 books to SISD students since 2014.
Organizers plan to gift the rest of the books to Hueco Elementary School, Bill Sybert School, Paso Del Norte Fine Arts Academy and Escontrias STEAM Academy.
Leftover books from the events will be donated to the schools' libraries.
"Reading is fundamental really to all education. When students can read, then they can read to learn," said SISD Superintendent Nate Carman. "And so it's an important building block of their education and to get them excited about it really is instrumental."
Pre-K to fifth-grade students each received one book of their choice.
Ben Narbuth Elementary Principal Fernie Miranda said he's fortunate to have received books for his students.
"Our motto is that 'readers become leaders,' and reading opens the world," Miranda said. "We encourage students to read whatever they like to read, anything of interest. Whether it's a comic book, something serious, a novel, something funny, anything, whether it's a magazine, (we) just want them to pick up a book and something to read."
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Socorro American Federation of Teachers give books to Narbuth students
