We’ve mentioned Bess the Book Bus a few times as we’ve done a lot of great events with her over the last few years, but I wanted to take a moment to describe her program a bit more and announce our partnership for 2011. Bess the Book Bus is a great program that encourages children to get excited about reading. Founder Jennifer Frances travels around the country in her brightly colored library on wheels, custom designed with shelves and drawers full of thousands of books. She stops at schools, shelters and programs for at-risk youth to read to children and give them free books—for some the only books they’ve ever had.
Because kids need to see well to read well, Bess the Book Bus and VSP Vision Care have teamed up through the VSP Sight for Students® program. As the newest Sight for Students community partner, Frances provides gift certificates for free comprehensive eye exams and glasses to qualified children. As part of the partnership between Transitions Optical, VSP and Bess the Book Bus, and because the average child receives three times the annual UV exposure than an adult, all glasses provided through Frances are outfitted with Transitions lenses. Transitions lenses automatically darken to help protect the children’s eyes from harmful UV radiation, which is a tremendous benefit considering that less than 30 percent of children wear sunglasses regularly.
Frances’ goal is to travel through 44 states and distribute more than 200,000 books this year. That’s right, this isn’t just a weekend gig! In fact, in the past few weeks Frances has distributed more than 5,000 books to more than 2,000 children , including joining Eyenstein in Tuscaloosa to help children affected by the tornadoes. She is in Minnesota this week and will be in Wisconsin next week. Keep up to date on Bess the Book Bus’ adventures on Frances’ blog and check out some pictures from recent events.
