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Megan Lough and Kendall Bradley, two Girl Scouts from Eagan, Minnesota, collected over 900 children’s books for at-risk families served through Lifetrack Resources. As part of the Silver Award requirements, the second highest recognition in Girl Scouts, the two girls held a book drive in their community.

Kendall shared about the importance of their project, “Mothers can’t read to their kids if they don’t have the resources to do so. I never really considered this before, and I know reading was a huge part of my childhood.”

Megan added, “It was great seeing how people were generous. Our goal was to collect 500 books but got 900 or more.”

Lifetrack Resources’ Families Together Therapeutic Preschool and Home Visiting programs work with highly stressed children and their families. One of the goals the programs seek to accomplish is learning readiness for children under 5 years of age. Studies have shown that reading to babies is critical in early brain development and plays and important role in parent-child attachment as well as developing school readiness skills. This goal is often challenging to accomplish because many low income homes have few or no book in their homes.

“Lifetrack Resources is excited about this donation of books. It is an ongoing need for the families we serve, especially board books for infants and toddlers,” said Roejean Goodwin, Family Services Program Manager for Lifetrack Resources. “One new mom and dad to our program were surprised by how much their 6-month old loved the books. The parents expressed that they didn’t know they should be reading to a child who was so young! Megan and Kendall’s book donation will help to put this child on a path to learning success early in life.”

Megan and Kendall were able to successfully complete their Silver Award project with support from their parents and as well as a generous community and will be receiving their award in June.