Free books are being given out across Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows to low-income families.

The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows community tapped into a program called First Books Canada which provides free books for the community both through the literacy committee and community volunteers.

About 10 boxes full are piled up in the Learning Room at the CEED Centre on 223rd Street in Haney.

Elaine Yamamoto is looking for teachers and social agencies who are in contact with low-income families and could distribute the free books to them.

Yamamoto, who is with the literacy committee, said it’s “exciting” to receive these books.

There are about 1,000 books being distributed – about 500 through the literacy committee and about 500 through Fraser Health’s Healthy Babies program.

This is only the second time First Books is on the West Coast, giving out the books that are donated by publishers with no strings attached.

“All they want is you give them away,” Yamamoto said.

Anyone who works with low-income children and wants to distribute books to them can contact Yamamoto at 604-721-3738 or facilitator@communityliteracy.ca.

Glenwood and Harry Hooge elementary schools received books from First Books as well, distributed by Maple Ridge resident Susan Hayes, who is a member of Vancouver Alumnae Club of Pi Beta Phi fraternity, one of the funding partners of First Books.

For more information about First Books, go to www.firstbooks.ca.

Members of the alumnae club spent the week sorting and labelling more than 40,000 volumes which were distributed out of Raincoast Book Warehouse.

Pi Beta Phi members brought boxes of selected books to Harry Hooge and Glenwood elementary schools last week from the First Books Canada distribution.

Students at Harry Hooge Elementary took part in a the fraternity’s Champions Are Readers (CAR) program, a Pi Beta Phi program.

The students were provided with workbooks from Pi Beta Phi and challenged to read 15 minutes out loud a day to their parent, a caregiver, or a sibling.

CAR, a month-long daily reading program, culminated with the presentation of certificates of achievement and a new, free book to the Grade 3 students at Harry Hooge who completed the task.

For more information about First Books, go to www.firstbooks.ca.