Bleckley County’s Royal Reader Bus offers free books and food to children during school breaks, fostering a love for reading.
COCHRAN, Ga. — The Royal Reader Bus may roll down the same streets as every other school bus, but its mission is far from ordinary.
Bleckley County Schools launched the literacy bus in 2021 by converting an older model school bus. Assistant Superintendent Lara Rowland said the effort was supported by grants, donations and hours of work from the district’s transportation team.
“Our bus maintenance team, they built the shelving that’s in the bus. They took all the seats out. They put flooring in, they did an awful lot of work to create this for us,” Rowland said.
Now, students board the bus during the school year to get familiar with it. Each grade level at the primary and elementary schools has a chance to climb on once a month. Second grader Bailey Robinson said the inside feels inviting.
“It has a lot of cushions. You can just read, relax and spend time with friends,” Robinson said.
The bus is especially busy during the summer and holiday breaks. That’s when it makes stops across neighborhoods in Bleckley County. Each child who climbs aboard gets to keep a book — and they also receive a bag of food, donated by local churches and civic groups.
“Probably about 10,000 books or more have come through the bus,” Rowland said.
The impact is clear for students.
“Maybe you don’t have enough money to read — get books at home and all of this, all these books are free,” second grader John Palumbo said.
The Royal Reader Bus provides bags of food to every child it meets and even air conditioning, which many families appreciate. Rowland said seeing children walk away smiling with books they get to keep makes the effort worthwhile.
Bleckley parents interested in having the bus visit their neighborhood can reach out to the school district for more information.