Bo­cas Lit Fest sup­port­ed The Shel­ter-A Safe House for Sur­vivors of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence through its year-end Books that Build Hope do­na­tion dri­ve, in part­ner­ship with Pa­per Based Book­shop.

A state­ment from Bo­cas Lit Fest said the ini­tia­tive ex­pand­ed The Shel­ter’s li­brary with dozens of new books for res­i­dents of all ages, while of­fer­ing the pub­lic a mean­ing­ful way to give back.

Cus­tomers and well-wish­ers al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed by se­lect­ing and pur­chas­ing ti­tles from a spe­cial­ly cu­rat­ed list, which were added to the do­na­tion.

The ini­tia­tive fo­cused on shar­ing the joy of read­ing with women and chil­dren re­build­ing their lives af­ter do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

Ad­di­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions in­clud­ed Chil­dren’s Sto­ry­telling Car­a­van books from Bo­cas Lit Fest’s Chil­dren’s Pro­gramme and a ham­per of chil­dren’s books from Let’s Read TT.

On Jan­u­ary 31, The Shel­ter’s res­i­dents al­so en­joyed a spe­cial edi­tion of the Fam­i­ly Read­ing Cir­cle, led by Chil­dren’s Pro­gramme man­ag­er Melv­ina Haz­ard with writer/sto­ry­teller Mary Cuffy, fea­tur­ing read­ings from her Lo­la the La­dy­bug book se­ries. These ses­sions sup­port par­ents and care­givers in fos­ter­ing a love of read­ing and help set chil­dren on the path to be­com­ing life­long read­ers.

“Bo­cas Lit Fest was de­light­ed to sup­port The Shel­ter-A Safe House for Sur­vivors of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence through our year-end Books that Build Hope do­na­tion dri­ve, in part­ner­ship with Pa­per Based Book­shop,” said Geor­gia Pop­plewell, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Bo­cas Lit Fest.

“This col­lab­o­ra­tion of­fers the pub­lic a mean­ing­ful way to give back. We’re hap­py that the li­brary for The Shel­ter’s res­i­dents of all ages has been ex­pand­ed, and we look for­ward to work­ing with The Shel­ter in oth­er ways in the com­ing months.”