Lafayette bookseller kicks off holiday book drive

• By MARSHA SILLS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Nov 7, 2009 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — The gift of reading is on the wish list of preschool programs at nine Lafayette public schools.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers of Lafayette customers can help grant those wishes through the store’s annual holiday book drive.

The drive began Sunday and ends New Year’s Day.

Customers have already donated 500 books to the cause, said Drew Zeigler, store manager at a news conference Friday. He said a goal of 5,000 books has been set.

“Each year we find a community partner to put books in the hands of children who need them,” Zeigler said.

This year, that partner is the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning. The center will distribute the books to the nine LA4 preschool programs in Lafayette Parish.

Zeigler was joined by Ouida Forsyth, Picard Center project director of early childhood programs, ULL President Joseph Savoie and Parish Schools Superintendent, Burnell Lemoine.

The Picard Center is the evaluator of the state’s LA4 early childhood education programs, which began in 2001 to prepare the state’s neediest children for academic success.

The program is offered free of charge to needy children and available to other students on a tuition-basis.

The Picard Center’s research has “validated the notion that all children can learn with the right support,” said Savoie.

Special guests included children from Truman Montessori’s LA4 program who were able to select a book to take home.

“Can I donate this one?” Cordelia McKelvy, 4, asked her mother after the news conference. Her finger then touched each word in the title: “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.”

The drive is a small way that people can make a major impact in a child’s life, said Cordelia’s mother, Josephine McKelvy.