A bookmark from Pine Glen Designs. They offer a number of complimentary bookmark patterns. Check them out!

This is year four for the Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy annual Bookmark Challenge. The Bookmark Challenge event was designed to coordinate with Children’s Book Week, offering schools and libraries bookmarks they could use as awards and incentives for Book Week programs.

However, not all libraries host Children’s Book Week programs. Right away, some participating libraries asked to use the donated bookmarks for summer reading programs instead. Of course, that was a-okay with us; the point is to promote literacy. Period.

As the program has grown and expanded, so have the targets of the program. As we saw here a couple of weeks ago, the Day Lilies Chapter of the EGA in Medina, OH, is donating bookmarks to ProjectLEARN, a local adult literacy program.

The Needle Artisans of Northwest Indiana chapter of EGA is stitching bookmarks now, in time for Children’s Book Week at a local library, but also plans to stitch, collect, and donate bookmarks to Hammond Reads for their Time Out For Reading event on October 2, 2010. I’ve offered our help–mine and yours! Can you stitch another bookmark over the summer for this program? I will.

Stitching for Literacy is officially a year-round program. I look forward to hosting, supporting, and promoting bookmark-donation and needlework outreach events throughout the year. If you’d like to coordinate a project in your area, let’s e-talk. Our email address is in the sidebar, you know.