Del Mar Highlands’ Barnes & Noble book fair to support Children’s Initiative

By Karen Billing

The Del Mar Highlands’ Barnes & Noble will hold a spring book fair for The Children’s Initiative March 2-8.

The Children’s Initiative is an organization dedicated to improving the well being of children and youth in San Diego County and helping them reach their full potential. They offer after-school programs that serve more than 27 school districts, 310 schools and 44,000 children annually. The organization’s programs create a safe place for children to go in the after-school hours, providing homework assistance and tutoring, healthy snacks and enrichment activities.

“Every year Barnes & Noble does a holiday book drive and we try and target groups that serve the needy or underprivileged and have something to do with literacy,” said Mone Fair, the store’s general manager.

Through its 2013 holiday book drive, Barnes & Noble was able to donate more than 1,500 books to Children’s Initiative. Barnes & Noble does a match program with Citigroup so, in total, more than 3,000 books went to Children’s Initiative.

Fair said they wanted to do a spring book fair for the organization in addition to the upcoming summer reading program. During the week of March 2-8, customers can opt to participate in the book fair and select a book from behind the counter to donate.

On Sunday, March 2 at 11 a.m., Barnes & Noble will host a kick-off celebration for the book fair, in conjunction with the “National Read Across America” event and Dr. Seuss’ birthday. There will be a special story time, games and prizes for children.

To close the book fair, Barnes & Noble will celebrate with an American Girl event at the store on Saturday, March 8, at 11 a.m. The event will also involve games and prizes for the kids.

To learn more about The Children’s Initiative, visit thechildrensinitiative.org. Barnes & Noble is located in Del Mar Highlands Town Center at 12835 El Camino Real, San Diego, CA 92130; (858) 481-4038.