Shine City Project cleans books at Spread the Word Nevada!

On August 10, 2023, Shine City Project returned to Spread the Word Nevada to help clean books! Spread the Word Nevada is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to advancing early childhood literacy by providing books for children and households located in at-risk, low-income neighborhoods in Nevada. Since 2001, they've been able to distribute over 7.1 million books to 790,025 students in both Northern and Southern Nevada. On average, that's 60,000 books for students each month!

On this Thursday evening, our nine Shine City Project volunteers met inside the volunteer room at Spread the Word Nevada. We first received instructions and guidance through a video showing what to look out for in the books before starting and how to clean the books with the tools provided. At our disposal, we had a wet and dry cloth, plastic scraper, permanent marker, scissors, tape, a couple erasers, and some goo and adhesive remover! We had to ensure that the front and back covers and individual pages were all clean and that any stray markings, stickers, and dirt were all removed. For books that were too damaged or contained unsuitable content for children, these books had to be placed in plastic bins for recycling.

Overall, we enjoyed the experience of flipping and reading through the pages of the books, as well as taking time to prepare them for future distribution! It was relaxing and peaceful to have a book in hand. After the service project, one of our volunteers wanted to treat everyone for dinner! We enjoyed some sushi at Sapporo Revolving Sushi! Our volunteer really appreciated the group and our members and wanted to share some love with everyone! We're grateful for his generosity and kindness!