The St. Joseph County Public Library has received a grant from the American Library Association to start a book club at the Juvenile Justice Center in South Bend.
A hundred libraries across the country received the Great Stories Club Grants. They’re meant to give libraries the opportunity to reach out to underserved youth.
St. Joseph County Public Library will be using the money to run a book club at the Thomas N. Frederick Juvenile Justice Center next year.
Missy Maeyens is the youth services assistant director at the library.
“Youth residing at the center are unable to visit the library so we’re bringing programming to them. We wanna improve literacy and develop lifelong readers but we also really want to make a positive connection with the topic and with the library as well.”
The five books the club will read all have some focus on empathy. The library also started a lending library at the center earlier this year, so more youth can have access to reading material outside the club.
Maeyens said the program will run through August next year. The library is planning to apply for the grant again.