Low-income and under-resourced communities are often unable to access much-needed literacy resources and supports. Challenges such as limited transportation can be barriers to accessing resources. That’s why the Durham Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and Book Harvest organized Books and Beyond: Laundromats.
The program turns the downtime families spend together each week at the laundromat into literacy enrichment opportunities. Families are met in laundromats by a Book Harvest team to share story time, literacy programs and stock shelves with children’s books. Laundromat owners and operators support the program too! In 2019, 689 children participated in 186 story times and took home 10,696 books.