By Grimsby Town Sports & Education Trust (GTSET) have distributed 400 free, brand new books to local primary school pupils to celebrate World Book Day today.
This act of kindness, which includes 10 primary schools in the area, is part of a partnership between the Premier League and the National Literacy Trust. Nationally, nearly 25,000 free books will be donated to children who need them most.
The partnership aims to support children whose access to physical books has been made difficult due to the national lockdown’s school and public library closures.
Research by the National Literacy Trust revealed that children who own their own books are nearly three times more likely to find reading an enjoyable activity.
Jim Sells, Sport and Literacy Programme Manager at the National Literacy Trust said: “World Book Day promotes reading for pleasure to improve all children’s life chances, and we are so pleased to support the charity behind the initiative. We know that children who have books at home do better in school, so we are delighted to be able to distribute such an incredible number of books to schools across the country with the help of the community organisations. I’d also like to thank our partners at Walker Books and the Morrisons Foundation for making this possible.”
Pupils who are participating in the Premier League Primary Stars education programme will each receive a free copy of Football School: 20 Fantastic Football Stories, a £1 title written by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton.
The education programme is delivered by professional football club community organisations across England and Wales.
Ray Blain, Premier League Primary Stars Lead at Grimsby Town SET said: “It has been a fantastic week engaging and delivering free books to a number of schools in the local area to help celebrate World Book Day. I would like to thank the Premier League, National Literacy Trust & the players at Grimsby Town for their support.
We have also delivered a number of online workshops to school children on the importance of reading through our Premier League Primary Stars school programme. I hope we have helped in some way this week to inspire children to love books and that reading can be cool!”
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