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In Widefield School District 3 (WSD3), we take care of our own. This week, our classrooms got a very special visit from More Books in Children’s Hands, a local group on a mission to make sure every child has a library at home.

The timing couldn’t have been more special. The giveaway happened on the birthday of the woman who inspired the whole organization, Debbie Leivers. She was a longtime elementary teacher who loved her students and believed in the power of reading. After she passed away in 2021, her family started this nonprofit in 2022 to keep her legacy alive.

Four years after they first started working with WSD3, they came back to celebrate her birthday by giving our students the best gift possible: the gift of a story.

It took a small army of 27 volunteers to visit 68 different classrooms across our district. Here is how the two days added up:

• 11 schools visited

• 1,091 students received books

• 5,659 books given away

• 225 different book titles

Every single preschooler and kindergartner in the district got to pick out five books to take home and keep forever—all for free.

For many of us, a book is just a few pieces of paper. But for a child, it’s a doorway to a better future.

"61% of low-income families don't have age-appropriate books at home. This is a big deal because having books at home is the number one predictor of how well a child will read later in life," said Carl Leivers. "By focusing on our Head Start and Title 1 schools, this group is making sure no student is left behind."

We are grateful to the volunteers and the family behind this mission for choosing to honor their mother’s memory right here in our schools.

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