Children's Book project at Tenterden Leisure Centre

Tenterden Leisure Centre has announced a link up with national charity the Children’s Book Project, which will see books collected at the facility distributed to underprivileged children across the country.

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 actually own their book.

The Tenterden team are asking local people with good quality children’s books to drop them off at the centre, using the dedicated ‘book bin’, which will be at the centre from 23rd May - 12 June where it will be then emptied with the books collected and distributed locally and nationally for children to enjoy.

Jordan Garland, Facility Manager for the centre 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. 

“If you’re someone with unwanted, but good quality, children’s books in your home, please pop along to the centre and give the gift of reading.”

Kirstin Knell from the Children’s Book Project told us:

“We are over the moon to be supported by Tenterden Leisure Centre, a facility which provides 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.” 

About the Children’s Book Project

1 in 8 disadvantaged children across the UK owns no books of their own, impacting their literacy skills, education outcomes and wider understanding of the world.  Crucially, these children also have fewer opportunities to escape into stories, identify with characters and to see themselves as part of a wider reading community.

The Children’s Book Project is on a mission to tackle book poverty.  To date it has gifted 610k pre-loved books to families across the UK, helping schools, foodbanks, women’s refuges and even prisons to put on celebratory book gifting events where children are given the opportunity to choose and take home books of their own.

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 6000,000 books across the UK.

For more information about the charity, visit the Children's Book Project website here.