The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri are organizing a Drive Thru Children’s Book Drive across several schools in St. Louis County from April 24 to May 5. 

New or gently used children’s books are being collected to benefit the Assistance League of St. Louis From Friends program.

Donation boxes will be at MHS from April 24 to May 5. The Drive-Thru Drop-Off Site is at Crestview Middle School on Saturday, May 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m..

Sheila King, District 12 neighborhood two manager for the Girl Scouts, has been working with the Book Drives through the Girl Scouts since the beginning of the pandemic.

“I have always had a love for children’s books,” King said. “The stories are simple, and they have good messages through the words and illustrations. I knew we had to do something for the kids who don’t always have access to books.”

King said the more people who are involved in the book drive, the more success they will see in getting books in the hands of young children, and that the scouts will take extra initiative to make that happen.

“Our girls are always looking for projects to do because we are a service organization as well,” King said. “We’re having a booth outside of Half Price Books. That way, if people are going in to buy books, they want to buy a book to donate to the cause.”

Principal Dr. Stephen Hankins has worked to put information about the book drive in the parent newsletter, and said that once this goes out to all parents, they will start sending more information out to student’s emails as well.

“It’s a great cause,” Dr. Hankins said. “Reading at a young age is such an important part of development of language and reading skills, so if we can get reading to kids when they are little, it’s huge.” 

Brittany Sharitz, librarian, has worked with book drives in the past, and is excited to see the benefits this drive-thru will have for kids within the community.

“Whenever we know that there are individuals in society who are not as easily able to get to the public library or to books, they could be at a disadvantage,” Sharitz said. “Exposure to reading and learning new things is beneficial to everyone and so seeing these book drives and free libraries around town is really amazing and beneficial to all families.”