Charity book collection will help local children start new chapters

Children in the town who are overcoming family traumas, illness or bullying will be helped to turn the page on these problems following a hugely successful book collection organised by University staff.

The collection was held in October in aid of charity KidsAid and was organised by Lucy Atkinson, Programme Leader Foundation Study Framework and HR Assistant Jagruti Patel.

The donation drive formed part of Lucy and Jagruti’s Changemaker Fellowship. This programme helps staff develop leadership skills in tune with the University’s social impact ethos.

Part of the Fellowship involves them working closely with a charity and developing activities to support or fundraise for them.

Lucy and Jagruti plumped for a book collection, the aim being to get as many University staff and members of the public to drop-off good quality, new or used, books suitable for children and young people between the ages of 3-18 years.

They were looking for any type of book, whether reading or puzzle books, fiction or non-fiction, educational, creative or colouring. In the end, more than 500 books were donated for KidsAid in just a few days, with the majority newly bought.

KidsAid is a charity that supports children and young people within Northamptonshire to help them overcome traumatic events such as family breakdown, bereavement, domestic violence, abuse, neglect, illness and peer pressure.

They provide play therapy, art therapy and drama therapy, as well as protective behaviours work and child/adult relationship counselling that will support the young individual’s management of their immediate circumstances and help them go on to become healthy happy adults.

The books collected here will be distributed to children who access these services from KidsAid.

Lucy said: “Jagruti and I would like to extend a big, big thank you to our University colleagues and the people of Northampton for really getting behind our book collection…and in such a short space of time! It goes to show that, even when times are tough, Northamptonian’s will go out of their way to support a good cause.”

Suki Bassi, KidsAid’s Charity Manager, said: “Lucy and Jagruti really embraced KidsAid as their charity as part of the Changemaker Fellowship Programme – the book collection was completed in a matter of days and they achieved a massive success for us.

“And the help didn’t stop there as they even organised for the mountain of books to be delivered to us at our new location in the Grosvenor Centre.

“There were over 500 books and many of them brand new.  The children and young people that we work with will all hugely benefit from the collection.”

Find out more about KidsAid.

*Changemaker is a University of Northampton-wide initiative which focuses on staff and students finding solutions to environmental or social problems to improve people’s lives, either at home or abroad.