Magazine Literacy Bee

There are two sides to a KinderHarvest magazine collection:
1. finding agencies that need the magazines.
2. the magazine collection itself.

Step 1: Identify the Literacy Need
A good match is collecting magazines for a nearby food pantry or homeless shelter. It's best to know where the magazines will go first, as well as how many children and adults receive services (e.g. the number of families that get a bag of groceries from a food pantry, or beds used at a shelter each week; also, the approximate number of children and adults served, and the general demographics, such as gender counts). This will allow you to set goals for the magazine drive and to target the drive to meet specific needs. If you can identify one or more agencies that will use the magazines, that would be great. If needed, we can help with that.

Step 2: Collect Magazines
Your students could then bring in "gently used," recent issues of magazines - this way, the children and families will receive current magazines to read and enjoy. Your class could also be the HQ for a magazine collection throughout the school. As part of the project, perhaps students could craft a note or artwork to include with each magazine. This could be a one time event or repeated as time allows.

Why Gently Used?
One of the essential tenets of our magazine literacy program is for children and families, who cannot otherwise obtain their own magazines, to enjoy the same experience as others when their subscriptions arrive in the mail with their name on the address label - that feeling we get when we open our own mailboxes, when the only thing that matters is finding the next issue of our favorite magazine.

Step 3: Label the Magazines
The at-risk children and families we serve have few possessions, and [img_assist|nid=26|title=Label a Child|desc=|link=url,http://magazineliteracy.org/?tp=ideas#label|align=left|width=100|height=35]in the places we reach them - in homeless and domestic violence shelters, they usually arrive with no possessions. So affixing a label to their magazine gift instills a sense of ownership, pride, and self-esteem - the label makes it something they can call their own - "my own magazine." The magazine is very important, but it's their name on the label that makes the magazine their property. So that tiny label creates tremendous value. We have label templates you can use on our website.

Step 4: Count and Deliver your Magazines
Collecting magazine puts smiles on the faces of donors and volunteers. The greatest smiles will be on the faces of teachers and other literacy agents and the children and families who receive them. Keep track and report how many magazines you collect and distribute for our national tally.

We can set you up with a blog here to tell your story and to post photes so others can learn from your experience. Or, send us information and photos, which we will post on our web site as an example for others. Be sure to follow your school's policies for photo release.

Here are links to more information about KinderHarvest:
http://magazineliteracy.org/?tp=kinderharvest
http://magazineliteracy.org/blog/?cat=16

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