Reading Roots - Bilingual Home Libraries

For 25 years, Denver has been a primary arrival city for refugees and immigrants fleeing violence, persecution, and war. Afghan evacuees. Congolese families. Ukrainian mothers. Venezuelan asylum-seekers walking for months to reach our state. 

ACC has been a first point of stability for nearly a quarter of all refugees in Colorado- serving over 15000 refugees since 2001. 

Few refugee families own children’s books, and even fewer own books in their family's home language. ACC’s community members are often focusing on making enough money to pay rent and put food on the table. Children’s books, especially ones in their home language, are a luxury they cannot afford. 

This is why we started Reading Roots, ACC’s new initiative to place bilingual books in each refugee family’s home. Our goal is for every family with a child under 5 years old to receive 20 children’s books. Books are both in their home language and in English. The program also educates parents about the benefits of reading and bilingualism during book distribution. 

Our Reading Roots program has already bought over 1,000 bilingual books in 7 languages to reach 54 families! But we need help to reach the remaining 60 families by the start of the new school year!

Sponsoring a family is not just buying some picture books, it is making an investment in the most vulnerable in our society that will impact generations. More books means more parents reading with their children and teaching them important traditions. It means exposure to a love of reading and cognitive benefits for their entire life. 

Our goal is simple- $10,000 to reach 60 families with young children with books in Dari, Pashto, Tigrinya, and Swahili. Each family will receive 20 bilingual books. 

Your sponsorship will bring the books right to refugee families’ homes- every dollar donated goes directly to buying books to support Reading Roots’ vision.

The goal is to raise donations by the end of August, the start of the new school year! There are 3 sponsorship levels: 

$50 to sponsor ⅓ of a home library

$100 to sponsor half of a home library

$200 to fully sponsor a family’s home library 

$400 to sponsor 2 home libraries