A local organization is collaborating with Gwinnett County Public Schools to bring books to nearly 8,000 students in the Lilburn area.
The Lilburn Woman’s Club is sponsoring Gwinnett County Public Schools’ Book Mobile, which brings a selection of on-level books for students to pick out and permanently take home. LWC President Kathy Mattox explained that though the program has been offered since 2017, it was not always accessible to all students, as schools often pay out of pocket for the services.
“The schools in some cases have taken funds out of their Title I funds to pay for [the Book Mobile] to visit,” Mattox said. “But many times, they do it at a targeted grade, or they’ve had them in the evening, so a lot of the students don’t have the means to go and get them.”
Title I refers to funding given to schools in which a large percentage of the student body lives at or below the poverty line.
The LWC’s involvement with the program officially began on Jan. 15, 2025. The club’s $14,000 contribution enables the refurbished school bus to visit all eight Lilburn public elementary schools during school hours. Once the bus arrives, students from kindergarten through fifth grade can board the bus and browse its shelves for a book at no cost.
While the initiative aims to instill a love of reading within students, Mattox said the club’s sponsorship addresses a larger concern: book deserts.
According to an official release from the club, a “book desert” refers to communities in which access to quality books is limited. Unite for Literacy, a for-profit social enterprise provides an interactive map that shows areas throughout the United States that are considered to be book deserts based on the likelihood of a child having 100 or more books in their household. While the organization ranked the entirety of Gwinnett County as “below average,” the website also distinguished that while other parts of the county surveyed had book equity as a focal area for community members, Lilburn did not.
“Children with access to books at home are 5.5 times more likely to read above their age level compared to peers who have fewer than 10 books. Alarmingly, many students cannot afford books at school fairs, further exacerbating the issue.” – Statement from The Lilburn Woman’s Club
The National Reading Trust conducts an annual survey on the impacts of book ownership for students between the ages of five and 18. In 2024, the organization found 23.1% of children and young people aged eight to 18 who had a book of their own at home said they read daily, compared to the 7% of children in the same age group that reported not owning a book of their own. Additionally, surveyors found that 16.7% of students who reported not having a book at home also read below their grade’s reading levels. Comparatively, only 7% of students who reported having a book at home read below level.
Susan Allred serves as the club’s Parliamentary Advisor and oversees its involvement with the initiative. So far, the club has taken the Book Mobile to Hopkins Elementary School, with appointments to visit Lilburn, Arcado, RD Head, Minor, Mt. Park, Camp Creek and Knight Elementary Schools throughout the semester.
“[The] kids are so excited,” Allred said. “They cannot believe that they get to keep their book and it’s all theirs.”
While Lilburn does have two public libraries within its city limits, Allred emphasized the importance of ownership.
“[Kids] like to reread the same book,” Allred explained. “It also helps to promote growth in reading, because they may have read it the first time and may not quite be as capable, and then as they learn, they’re able to read more… but when it’s a library book, they may not get to read it fully before they have to return it. It’s something they can treasure, and when they treasure it, it promotes reading desire.”
In addition to the Book Mobile, the LWC also supports literacy through its Dictionary Project, which provides each third grader in Lilburn with a student dictionary.
According to the Gwinnett County Public Schools’ website, anyone can sponsor a Book Mobile visit to a school. While the program does accept monetary donations, any physical book donations must be new. All books are judged by the district’s standards to ensure they are appropriate for each grade level.
