Project Cicero Hosts 16-School Book Drive Benefiting Teachers

The Elisabeth Morrow School (EMS) in Englewood, New Jersey and Project Cicero will partner up this March to host a 16-school Book Drive that will benefit local schoolteachers in the Englewood Public School system and Teach for America Greater Newark. Project Cicero, which has been in existence in NYC for over ten years, takes new and gently used books from donors at public schools and independent schools and redistributes them to needy public schools through an annual book drive. Project Cicero now has over 100 private, public and parochial schools involved in the drive each year. To date, Project Cicero has placed over 1,850,000 books into 10,500 classrooms and school libraries reaching 450,000 children in under-resourced schools in NYC. This year, for the first time, Project Cicero will expand to Northern New Jersey, benefiting schools in Englewood and Newark.

Over a two week period, the 16 donor schools will hold independent book drives; the books collected will then be picked up by trucks donated by The Bergen Record and transported to The Elisabeth Morrow School. Once the books reach EMS, volunteers will sort them into categories. Local schoolteachers from the Englewood Public School system and Teach for America Greater Newark will then be invited to EMS to fill suitcases with books of their choosing to be taken back to their classrooms in Englewood and Newark.

To date, the following schools plan to hold book drives in support of Project Cicero:

The Elisabeth Morrow School
Temple Emanu-El Religious School
Dwight-Englewood School
Northern Valley Middle School
Luther Lee Emerson School (Demarest)
County Road School (Demarest)
Bergen Academies
Fort Lee Elementary School #4
Lewis F. Cole Middle School (Ft. Lee)
Fort Lee Elementary School #1
Tenafly Smith Elementary School
Tenafly High School
Solomon Schechter School
Ridgewood High School
Englewood Cliffs North Cliff School
Englewood Cliffs Upper School

The book drive will be held at the Elisabeth Morrow School located at 435 Lydecker Avenue in Englewood, New Jersey on Saturday, March 9th (snow date Sunday, March 10th). Set up and sorting of books will take place on Friday, March 8th. Teachers and volunteers interested in attending must register in advance via email: projectciceronnj@gmail.com.

Project Cicero accepts new and gently used hardcover and paperback books for children (pre-K through grade 12) and young adults. Project Cicero does not accept textbooks, adult books, library discards or out of date non-fiction/reference books.

For more information on Project Cicero, please visit: projectcicero.org.