The Bolton Community Leisure Trust, which manages five leisure centres in the town, has announced a link up with national charity the Children's Book Project, which will see books collected via the Trust's facilities distributed to underprivileged children across the UK.
Book ownership has been directly linked with improved mental health, while reading fluency itself has a significant impact on children's successful progression through education. The Children's Book Project is looking to tackle 'book poverty', giving every child the opportunity to own a book.
The Trust are asking local people with good quality children's books to drop them off at its facilities: the Jason Kenny Centre, Farnworth, Leverhulme Park, Horwich and Westhoughton Leisure Centres. Each centre will have a dedicated 'book bin' for customers to use. Books will be collected then distributed locally and nationally for children to enjoy.
Partnership Manager for the Trust, Mahendra Patel said:
"We're delighted to link up with the Children's Book Project, helping them with their important work of providing books to children who may be currently missing out on this crucial element of a young person's educational development.
"We will be hosting the book bins from 23rd May to 10th June 2022, so if you're someone with unwanted, but good quality, children's books in your home, please pop along to one of our centres and give the gift of reading."
Kristin Knell from the Children's Book Project told us:
"We are over the moon to be supported by Bolton Community Leisure Trust, whose centres provide such an important way for the local community to get together. Every book donated by families will be gifted on by our volunteers to children with few of their own. We're so looking forward to seeing the results of everyone's spring sort of their bookshelves and sharing the very real impact these books have had."
The Children's Book Project was registered as a charity in 2019, won the Queen's Award for Volunteering in 2020 and to date has donated over 600,000 books across the UK.
Bolton Community Leisure Trust (BCLT) in partnership with managing agent, Serco Leisure and on behalf of Bolton Borough Council. BCLT runs five centres across Bolton: the Jason Kenny Centre, plus Farnworth, Leverhulme Park, Horwich and Westhoughton Leisure Centres.
For further information about each of the Trust's centres, please visit: https://www.boltonleisure.com/