To keep kids reading through the summer, two Gwinnett County Public Schools mobile libraries-- POW! and EXPLORE!— have hit the road. They’ll bring library books to students where they are this summer -- at home!
The two mobile libraries launched Monday and will travel routes that will take them to a total of 100 stops in six clusters every week. The colorful converted school buses will make nine stops per day, checking out school library books to students who may not have easy access to the public library.
The program started in the Meadowcreek Cluster in 2017 and added stops in the Norcross Cluster last summer. New this year, the book mobiles will make stops in the Berkmar, Central Gwinnett, Discovery and Shiloh clusters.
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The expanded Book Mobile program hopes to build on last summer’s success when the two buses had 13,700 checkouts in just eight weeks.
The two Book Mobiles will be stocked with books for all ages and reading levels— Pre-K to 12th grade— pulled from the shelves of each cluster’s media centers. The weekly schedule (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday) will repeat each week through Saturday, July 27.
(The buses will take the July 4 holiday off.)
Additionally, the Atlanta Community Food Bank will provide snacks. And, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the GCPS School Nutrition Program will offer meals to children visiting the Book Mobile.
Last summer, 94.2% of Book Mobile visitors qualified for free or reduced-price meals during the school year.
(Free meals are available at schools and other sites through the Seamless Summer Option, but transportation is not provided.)
This summer, follow the bookmobiles on Twitter and Instagram @gcpslibraries or through the hashtag #GCPSBookMobile.
For a complete list of stops: www.gcpsbookmobile.org
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