More pop-up lending library stations to be built

COATESVILLE » Arts Holding Hands and Hearts, Inc. was awarded a grant from the Coatesville Rotary to build eight more Pop-Up-Lending-Library (PULL) Stations around Coatesville.

There are currently 75 PULL Stations around Coatesville and this program has gained wide community support. Literacy rates for Coatesville area children are some of the lowest in the state. The PULL campaign seeks to make books accessible to children.

The organization has joined forces with many different organizations in the community to make this happen. On Thursday, PULL officials will be having a decorating event where people in the community are invited to help us paint and decorate the eight new PULL Stations.

There will be a revealing party in August where the new PULL Stations will be on display.

The PULL program is important, officials said, because more than one-third of children in the Coatesville Area School District are reading and writing below grade level.

More than half of children in the district come from economically disadvantaged families. Many children are not being exposed to enough words and reading before age 5, when the brain is most malleable. By the time they enter school, they already have an academic disadvantage. Many families in Coatesville have experienced generational poverty and generational incarceration, which is traumatic for both the family and children and can lead to social and behavioral problems which further affect one’s ability to learn to read.

“We know that everyone, on every level has the capacity to support early childhood literacy,” said Jan Michener, program official. “No matter who you are, no matter what your story in life is, we know that picking up a book can change it.”