Domtar Corporation announced that employee volunteers from the company’s personal care products mill in Delaware, visited the Ridgedale Elementary School in Morral, this week to donate and read new books to the school’s children as part of its partnership with First Book.
Each kindergartner and first-grader received a book from the event, and the teachers shared a hundred additional books in their classrooms, according to a news release.
A Fortune 500 company, Domtar makes a wide variety of everyday products from sustainable wood fiber, such as copy paper and diapers. Domtar’s Delaware Mill in Delaware employs nearly 230 people.
As part of its Powerful Pages campaign, Domtar has partnered with First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise that provides books to children in need, since 2012 to provide more than half a million dollars in grants to schools and programs in towns that are home to Domtar facilities.
Domtar’s grants provide funding to educators to purchase books through the First Book Marketplace, a website available exclusively to First Book programs, and then the school’s children are able to bring home the new books.
“We’re proud to have provided hundreds of thousands of brand-new books to children from underserved families across North America, in partnership with First Book,” said Domtar Corporate Responsibility Manager Heather Alverson Stowe.
“Domtar is committed to promoting literacy by putting books in the hands of children in need in the communities in which we operate — it’s a cause that is close to our hearts and core to our business.”
“Access to books is transformational in the lives of our children and the educators who serve them,” said Kyle Zimmer, First Book president and CEO. “Domtar’s work with First Book has opened up a world of opportunities to children who might not otherwise have books at home.”
