Volunteers will gather next Tuesday to give area kids a boost with books.

Salina Area United Way is meeting for a breakfast kickoff event at Vortex Corporation with a mission to stamp books that will ultimately end up in the hands of students to take home and read.

“The McCune Foundation has a program called the Eager Readers Program and we will be putting labels or stickers inside the books,” said Tonya Penn, Campaign Manager with Salina Area United Way.

Penn joined in on the KSAL Morning News Friday with a look ahead at the service event scheduled for Tuesday, September 13th at 7:30am.

“There are thousands and thousands of books that need to be labeled for age Kindergarten through Third grade,” she said.

“So it’s one of those projects where you can be there for 30-minutes or three hours – however long you want to be there.”

Volunteers will place a label into each book cover that will become the nameplate for children to own the book.

According to the organization, Salina Area United Way has identified early reading as one of the foundations that helps students graduate from high school and strengthen communities.