All smiles as youngsters and schools celebrate milestone of charitable book scheme

Books4Home is a charity set up within Rotary to enable disadvantaged children who have no books of their own at home to receive one or more to own.

Pre-loved and pre-read books are donated to the charity and distributed to children, mostly via schools, in the Rotary 1210 district, which covers Staffordshire, Shropshire and parts of the West Midlands.

Beverley Ricketts, from Rugeley, in Staffordshire, who is part of the Rotary Alumni, started the initiative in the district in 2014.

The scheme allows schools to apply for books.

Books4Home has now donated over 100,000 books to children across the district.

Cannock & District Soroptimists has been involved as a club for two years and in that time has collected and donated over 14,000 pre-loved books.

To mark the milestone of 100,000 books, Beverley put three golden tickets in books which were delivered to children in years four to six at various schools.

Those pupils who found the golden tickets each won some books for themselves and a lending library for their school.

The presentation of books was made during a special event at County Buildings, Stafford, on Sunday.

The golden ticket winners were Henrique Pacheco, eight, from St Alban's C of E Primary Academy, Wednesfield; Zainab Qayum, nine, from St Mark's C of E Primary School, Stoke-on-Trent and a pupil from Sherbrook Primary School, Cannock.

Trish Mellor, from Soroptimist International Cannock & District, said: "Each school will be receiving a little lending library very soon. Each child received two books, sponsored by SI Cannock & District and signed by the authors Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Morpurgo.

"As these authors no longer do book signings, Cannock Soroptimists were particularly grateful to them for agreeing to do the personal signings - and this was because they were so impressed by the project and all that it has achieved."

Schools and clubs can apply for books at Rotaryalumni1210.co.uk/rotary-books4home