What are the most exciting activities in your community? Parades, Canada Day, multicultural events, religious occasions and festivals are all opportunities to feature books, stories and reading along with music, food and fireworks.
Find out what activities are going on in your community each month. Consult newspapers and contact community leaders and organizers. Introduce yourself and ask them if reading books and stories can be included in the planned event. Volunteer to set up a reading corner or a reading tent. Based on our experience at Frontier College, the answer will be yes.
An effective way to bring reading to the community is to set up a traditional, Frontier College-style reading tent. The founder of Frontier College, Rev. Alfred Fitzpatrick (from Pictou, Nova Scotia), set up the first reading tent in 1899, in an isolated logging camp. he put up the tent in the middle of the camp, and stocked it with books and magazines. Then, he hung up a banner which read: "Reading Tent -- All Welcome." At the end of the working day, loggers went to the tent to study, to learn a new language and to share stories.