With every book store in the country vying for a slice of author James Patterson’s $100,000 give-away, hopes weren’t particularly high for Collins Booksellers in Griffith.
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This was until they were informed that they had received $1000 in funding to help develop learning from an early age.
Their pitch, which will be implemented shortly, was to give each new baby born at the Griffith Base Hospital a $10 gift voucher to start them on their literary journey.
Mother of four Rebecca Lashbrook said reading from an early age was vital.
“It’s to keep them interactive,” she said.
“It's so much more important than the TV to keep their imagination going.
“We read to the kids from a really young age and they like to read through the books and stuff like that.
“Alec has just started reading on his own and he likes to find his own books now and flick through them.”
Owner of the Griffith book store Debbie Guertin said she was a bit taken aback to hear that their application had been successful.
“There were only 70 stores in Australia to receive grants to develop projects to get kids reading,” she said.
“One of the criteria was you had to have a dedicated children's book section in the store and ours makes up nearly half of the entire store.
“We really focus on children's books and getting kids reading.”
She said this was something she had wanted to do for some time now.
“When I submitted the application I focused on getting parents reading to babies because I feel that's very important,” she said.
“It's been a love of mine to express the importance of reading to babies and making reading fun.”
She also thought that to limit the vouchers to just 100 babies would sell the idea a bit short, so the store will match that donation.
“What we want to do with the $1000 is give a $10 voucher to new babies,” she said.
“I'm going to write up a broacher, give it to the hospital and when babies are born they'll be given the broacher and it will say to come down to the store and collect the voucher.
“We'll match the $1000 as well, so there will be the initial 100 vouchers from the James Patterson donation and another 100 from us.”