Organization celebrates 10 years of shipping books to Indigenous children in remote communities

It was a decade ago when Anna Rosner launched Books with Wings, an organization that sends new books and personalized letters to Indigenous children in remote communities.

At the time she was volunteering as a grant writer for a non-profit in Toronto that provided breakfast programs to First Nations children across the country. And she wanted to do more.

“I became very aware of the challenges Indigenous children face,” Rosner said of that volunteer work, including poverty, malnutrition, the legacy of residential schools and geographic isolation. “I wanted to create a personal connection with children but I wasn’t sure how.”

At the time, Rosner had a two-year-old son in pre-school. She asked other parents at the school if they had any books they wanted to donate for her new cause.

Though she did receive several books, Rosner didn’t feel comfortable passing on some of the used donations as they had some stains and were not in the best condition.

“At that point I decided I would only send new books,” she said.

Rosner paid for the first shipment of books herself. Then she asked for financial donations from her parents and mother-in-law to continue.

Now, a decade later, Books with Wings has grown from Rosner working alone to a four-person operation. Since 2010 almost 18,000 books have been shipped to First Nations children in remote, fly-in communities.

Over the years Books with Wings has worked with schools in Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, and is now concentrating on four schools in Manitoba and one in British Columbia.

The Manitoba schools are God’s Lake Narrows First Nation School, Kistiganwacheeng Elementary School in Garden Hill, Cross Lake’s Otter Nelson River School and Peter Yassie Memorial School in Tadoule Lake.

The B.C. school is Rosie Seymour Elementary School in the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation community of Canoe Creek.

Upcoming shipments will include Rosner’s first book, Journeyman: The Story of NHL Right Winger Jamie Leach, which was released last month.

Rosner said her book was written in the hope it would provide an inspirational story for children in the Books with Wings program.

While she started her own venture with her own money and then sought some financial support from family members, plenty of others now keep the program running.

Primarily through word of mouth, donations keep pouring into the program, enabling Rosner and her partners to purchase enough new books to keep sending them out to students who request them.

“The best thing is 100 per cent of our donations go to the children,” said Rosner, who teaches French at Toronto’s York University. “There are no administrative fees. I think people like that.”

Scholastic Canada, First Book Canada and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre allows Books with Wings to buy books in bulk at discounted prices or at times donated them for free.

Rosner also praised the efforts of the program’s major sponsor, Perimeter Aviation, which has flown all of its books in Manitoba free of charge, from Winnipeg to the various fly-in communities.

“They’re our angels,” Rosner said of the airline. “They’ve been very supportive.”

Books with Wings also received a significant financial contribution from the Urban Systems Foundation, run by a British Columbia-based engineering company.

“We were able to secure enough funding so we could send books for two years, which really helps,” Rosner said.

Books with Wings’ officials prefer building up relationships with the same schools.

“We stay with the same schools because we want to make a long-term impact where books are not available,” Rosner said.

Rosner said when her program started, principals and teachers estimated that 95- to 100 per cent of their students did not own a single book of their own.

Students are asked to request the type of books they would most like to receive. Rosner and her three other partners ensure that with each book sent a personalized letter to each student is enclosed.

“I feel we’ve made meaningful connections with children that live far away,” she said.

If possible, Rosner would welcome the chance to add a sixth school to the Books with Wings program.

“If I had the opportunity I’d like to add another school in Manitoba,” she said. “I feel there’s a real need there.”

More information on the program is available at http://www.books-with-wings.org/