OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Thursday is National Reading Day.
In honor of the holiday 3 News Now's parent company, E.W. Scripps, sponsored a national "If You Give a Child a Book" campaign to help promote literacy in children. 3 News Now, Scholastic Books and the Scripps-Howard Foundation teamed up to provide funding to pay for four free books for each student at Franklin Elementary in Omaha.
"We've had a book fair at our school but they had to pay for the books and with limited funds for some they're not able to do this," said Dr. Christina Warner, the principal at Franklin Elementary. "What KMTV has done has opened the door for reading. They know that literacy is important and taking those books home for them and just being able to choose and select their books on their own, they will read these books and it increases reading in so many ways."
In the program's first three years, the Scripps-Howard Foundation and employees of the E.W. Scripps company donated more than 180,000 new books to children facing poverty in their communities.
Watch reporter Phil Bergman's story in the above video.
