For the third year in a row, the community’s love of reading and the promotion of literacy will be on full display at Pitman High School with the return of the popular Reading Extravaganza event.
The Reading Extravaganza will be held from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Sept. 20. The event is hosted by Fresno-based nonprofit Reading Heart in coordination with the Turlock Unified School District and the Amazon MCE1 warehouse in Turlock.
As it has been the previous two years in Turlock and for nearly a decade across California, the event is free to community members, with thousands of free books and school supplies available, as well as hot dogs courtesy of the Kiwanis of Greater Turlock, all while supplies last.
There will also be several games, activities and informational booths from local organizations for families to visit.
The organization announced the event with a flier, proclaiming this year’s festivities will be “bigger, bolder, and even more exciting than ever.”
An estimated 3,000 attended last year’s event. Each person was given a small bag to fill with books for them to take home, free of charge. Each bag was able to fit 10 to 15 books. The books — all 55,000 of them — were brought over by 18-year-old Danay Ferguson and her family.
Ferguson, of Fresno, founded the Reading Heart organization in 2014 after visiting children at local hospitals. The mission of the 501(c)(3) non-profit is to spread the joy of reading and improve literacy in communities across the country, especially children with limited access or who are in the hospital.
Reading Heart accepts book donations from the community. Those books are then re-donated to individuals in need or at special events like the Reading Extravaganza. The organization has collected over 1.2 million books and has donated more than 700,000 since they launched, according to their website.
For more information on the Reading Heart organization or to register for the event, head to their website at www.ReadingHeart.org.