WAVERLY, Tenn. (WTVF) — If there's one thing our community does best... it's giving back. We saw that firsthand when we asked viewers late last year to donate to our annual "If You Give A Child A Book" campaign.
Thanks to your generous donations, students at Waverly Elementary in Humphreys County took home three books at absolutely no cost. Each year, we partner with Scholastic and the Scripps Howard Fund to raise money to hold free book fairs at Title I schools across Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. With your help and matching donations from sponsors like the Nashville Predators, we raised $117,990 to help kids right here in our community. With $6 covering just one book — you can imagine just how far your donation goes.
Waverly Elementary School was the site of our first book fair of 2024. The community is still bouncing back from the devastating flood of 2021 that destroyed their school building. Now the kids and staff are in a temporary school and are hard at work getting back to normal. Now they're also busy restocking their bookshelves.
Watch the video above to see just how excited students were to pick out books of their very own.
"Our teachers work so hard to get these kids to learn how to read and seeing them to be able to take books home especially — we are a Title One school — you know, we live in a low socio-economic place and it just means a lot that you know we've got people looking out for us," said Waverly Elementary School principal Bryant Brink.
Students were already inspired to give back after discovering they were able to take home three books for free. Several students picked out a book for a family member.
"They're very very giving — I think because so much has been given and because they do appreciate being able to have access to the books now. It makes it all that much more special for them to be able to think for others instead of just themselves," said library media specialist Haley Hatcher.
