The Village at Meridian celebrated its 10th anniversary with a free event where they invited the community for a day of entertainment, activities and performances.
The City of Meridian has seen plenty of change over the last decade and one spot in the growing town that is celebrating its tenth anniversary is the village, and to highlight the occasion the Village is hoping to encourage one thing.
"Getting children to hold books, read books and learn from books," says Hugh Crawford, general manager at the Village. "That will just make their life better growing up and the sooner we can do that, the younger we can get the books in their hands, the greater chance they are going to have at having a successful life"
Idaho News 6 partnered with the Village to host a free event to benefit the If You Give a Child a Book campaign. People who visited the celebration got to meet characters right out of some very popular books like The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter, all to encourage more kids to read.
One person impacted by reading is Nicole Gillihan who became a librarian because of her childhood librarian.
"She was the one that got me into reading. She was very passionate about it and so she just kick-started a love of reading for me and as I grew older and decided to be a librarian, she was the librarian I wanted to be to other kids"
Today, Gillihan hopes that by extending access to books, reading can impact the lives of kids inside and outside of the classroom.
"When you start reading at a young age, it's not only promoting a love of literacy, but helping their language development. It's also promoting stability within the family, whoever their reader is."
To support the If You Give a Child a Book campaign in promoting literacy, you can contribute on the donation page here.
