College of Education / University Library

Youth Literature Festival

Engage & Volunteer

Community Participation is Key to the Festival's Success

When you were younger, what was a favorite book? Did someone read bedtime stories to you? Did you experience the excitement that reading books brought to your life?

Simple things matter! Join us in supporting our children to build great experiences and memories around reading and writing. Together, let's create and cultivate a love of reading in the lives of children and youth around central Illinois' schools and communities.

Ready to get involved?

Volunteer

The Youth Literature Festival offers a variety of opportunities to engage with schools, kids, authors, books, and our local community: you can help as a Community Day volunteer; community groups can host an Activity Table at Community Day; drivers are needed to transport authors to schools for visits; and book donations are needed. See below for more information on all these ways to help!

Volunteers playing with selfie props

Volunteer During the Community Day Celebration

Volunteers are needed for the Community Day Celebration. Two shifts of individuals or groups are needed to help attendees navigate the program of author presentations, hands-on activities, performances, puppetry, storytelling, and music.

Saturday, October 5th, 2024

Logistics

We expect approximately 1,500+ people to attend

Craft table with kids

Host an Activity Table During the Community Day Celebration

Advertise your business or organization and support schools, children and their families. Organizations, small business, clubs, and community friends are invited to host an engaging activity table during the Community Day Celebration, on Saturday, March 30, 2019.

To join us in hosting a literacy-related Activity Table, click here. *Spaces are limited, first-come, first-served.

Drive an Author to School

You can volunteer by driving an author during the school visits. Interested? Click Here.

Parking: Free Saturday parking in Lot B1, or at the Campus Center Public Parking Deck

Volunteers posing with signs

You can also...

Donate Books

Not all of our public schools have funds available to purchase books and make them available for students. In order to support schools and make sure that students have books available to read before the author visits, we count to the support of donations of friends and sponsors.

If you or your organization would like to make a donation of books to the Festival or to our schools, please email Franne Davis, at fadavis@illinois.edu at the Illini Bookstore. You can also make a gift online (scroll down to Youth Literature Festival Fund) and we will purchase books for you.

Donate Gifts to Raffle

During the Festival, we will have some raffles for the children. We accept any kind of donation (pens, notebooks, gifts with your logo, new books -please see the list of recommended books above). If you have a service-based business, you may also want to offer a gift card or discounts for your services (e.g., a free week of a summer course, 5-day ballet class pass; gift certificate from your business, and so on). Please contact us with any questions.

Become a Sponsor

Are you interested in sponsoring an author or supporting the Festival? Please check out the Sponsors page.