Melissa Rodriguez found a new use for a stroller. At her first First Book event sponsored by the UFT, with 1-year-old son Noel sitting in front, Rodriguez stuffed their allotment of 50 books behind him. “I was shocked they fit. I thought to myself, ‘Where am I going to put them?’” Rodriguez said of the Disney assortment and a few superhero books she grabbed for her older son, Abel, a kindergartner. Rodriguez was one of more than 700 parents, educators and students who combed through thousands of books on Oct. 15 at the event in the parking lot of the union’s Bronx borough office. UFT Director of Staff LeRoy Barr said, “It was a great day with parents and educators coming out to get books for Bronx students.” Tollyne Dickerson, the chapter leader at the Bronx Lab School, was among 100 volunteers who started organizing books the day before. “It’s hard to believe that 40,000 books are not enough,” Dickerson said. By 7 in the morning, lines were forming. Soon after, said Nick Cruz, the union’s Bronx parent and community liaison, parents, educators and child care providers filled whatever bags and carts they could find. Little children planted themselves on the ground, excited to read their new books. IS 219 teacher Kurth Carter attended with his daughter, Kaelyn, a 3rd-grader at PS 121. “There are so many kids who don’t read books,” said Carter, but “as long as you get them into the habit of reading, they will crawl to a book.” Dickerson said so many students need access to books that she keeps a few in her car to hand out in her neighborhood. When she sees older children glued to their phones, she said, her impulse is to hand them a book and say, “Instead of that, how about this?”

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