GFWC North Pinellas Woman’s Club Book Fairy Project started in 2004 and to date over 40,000 books have been donated to children in our community. They give books to schools, teachers, summer camps, waiting rooms and even distribute them in parades. The books that are donated are new and like new. Countryside High School Florida Future Educators have a book drive every year to keep the group supplied with books. The Countryside Design Class made beautiful stuffed owl pillows that all the little girls love to receive.
On June 3, 2017 GFWC gave books at their first Habitat for Humanity Dedication. The homeowner, Daniel Neris, soon after became a Habit Construction Supervisor. In January 2018 their sister GFWC club, the St. Petersburg Junior Woman’s Club joined the ladies of North Pinellas. North Pinellas Woman’s Club members attend the dedications in the north area of Pinellas County and the St. Petersburg Juniors women attend them in South Pinellas County.
Together the two groups have given over 1400 books to 86 families with a total of 205 children from June 2017 to date. These books have a market value well over $10,000 and the younger children also received stuffed animal characters.
The Habitat staff works with the groups to express the children’s interests so they can customize the book donation to each child and make reading more exciting for them. GFWC provide English/Spanish books for our bilingual families and have purchased books in English/Polish and English/Swahili to meet the interests of these diverse families.
Members love attending the Habitat for Humanity dedications and seeing the joy on the children’s faces when they see their books and toys on the kitchen counters.
“GFWC clubs started 75% of the nation’s libraries and have always supported literacy. Giving books to Habitat for Humanity families is very heartwarming to us and we are so glad that we partnered with this wonderful organization.”
