In our ongoing partnership with First Book Canada, we donated more than 200,000 books in the first half of 2019 to support youth in underserved communities across Canada. At the end of the year, we launched our holiday book-matching campaign that ran from Giving Tuesday to December 31, 2019. For every $4 donation, we donated one book, up to a total of 20,000 books, providing twice as many books to children in need. To learn more about our end-of-year campaign, click here.

In partnership with First Book Canada, we hosted an inaugural Literature Day for 30 students enrolled in DAREarts, a program that provides leadership development opportunities through arts-based education to children and youth in underserved communities across Canada. The students worked with publishing experts, including designers and editors, learning about the business, contributing to a book cover meeting, and designing their own book covers. They also participated in an interactive talk with illustrator Joe Morse and toured our offices, and each student went home with a selection of books to keep.

On February 19, 2020, we celebrated the inaugural I Read Canadian Day. A national campaign spearheaded by children’s author Eric Walters, many of whose books we proudly publish, I Read Canadian Day is dedicated to reading and promoting Canadian literature across the country. The campaign started in the children’s book world and quickly expanded to include Canadian books for readers of all ages, and we also participated, along with a number of our authors and accounts. Staff shared favorite Canadian-authored books on corporate social media channels and appeared on CTV’s Your Morning, a national breakfast television program, to share Canadian “readalike” recommendations for kids. To learn more about I Read Canadian Day, click here and here.

We contributed 5,000 books to housewarming care packages distributed to thirty groups that support women’s shelters across Canada by First Book Canada. Thousands of women and their kids received the gift of a book to read together and some soothing skin care products as they began the transition to a new life via the shelter system. To learn more about the housewarming kit initiative, please click here and here.

As part of Michelle Obama’s four-city Canadian tour for her best-selling memoir, Becoming, we provided 40 local community groups with 400 complimentary tickets to distribute to their members. In Toronto, members of A Room of Your Own Book Club were able to meet Mrs. Obama in person and receive copies of Becoming. We also provided 25 tickets to Alberta librarians to attend Mrs. Obama’s Edmonton event. To learn more about her book club meet-and-greet, click here.