Pay it Forward: Big Sky Stories and allied health working together to make a difference to young lives through books.
Big Sky Stories and allied health working together to make a difference to young lives through books
Through our ‘Pay it Forward’ initiative, customers of our retail bookshop One More Page Book Emporium are able to purchase a book to be gifted to a child in far west NSW. Through the generosity of supporters, we have collected a total of 209 books to distribute.
We are excited to now be working in partnership with Far West Local Health District’s Allied Health department to put these books into the hands of children to help create a foundation for learning throughout life and improved wellbeing.
Health is the perfect partner as books can help with many health factors. Research has shown that reading is known to be the single strongest predictor of adult health status. Learning to read is an important childhood milestone, just like learning to walk and talk. Children’s fine motor skills, visual perception, confidence in oracy and fluent reading are all nurtured through sharing books together and relating the stories and themes to our own lives.
Through this new partnership we have so far distributed 26 books. Allied Health clinicians have connected us with families that could benefit from this great resource, knowing that the books will also in turn support the children with some of their therapy goals.
Through home and centre visits, health clinicians and Big Sky Stories staff have encouraged children to choose their own book. It is important for children and young people to own their own books and choose what they’d like to read at a given point in time. The Kids and Family Reading Report found that the majority of kids agree their favourite books are the ones that they have picked out themselves.
What a wonderful way to end 2022!
An enormous thank you to everyone who has purchased a book to pay forward, to the health service for partnering with us and to all of the families and children who have so gratefully received this gift from their community.
We look forward to more paying it forward in 2023. If you’d like to be part of this initiative then we’d love to hear from you. There are many ways to be involved:
To purchase a book to pay forward please visit our retail bookshop One More page Book Emporium in-store or online.
If you’re an organisation in far west NSW and you’d like to partner with Big Sky Stories to distribute books, then please contact us via our contact form.
If you have or know of a child in far west NSW that could benefit from a gifted book, then you can also get in touch. Details of how are on our contact form.