A special showing of The Hunger Games movie at Hampton’s Windsor Theatre on Monday, April 23 will feed people in more ways than one. Admission to Monday’s showing will be 5 cans of food or $3 per person. One hundred twenty free books will be distributed as part of World Book Night USA, and everyone who attends will receive free popcorn too. The canned goods and admission money collected will be donated to the local food pantry. The Windsor Theatre, Hampton Kiwanis Club, KLMJ radio, and Cornerstone Cottage Kids are sponsoring the event. World Book Night USA is providing the books.
“KLMJ sponsored showings of movies in the past, and since The Hunger Games was one of the titles we could give away on World Book Night, asking Craig to get involved seemed like the natural thing to do,” said Judy Wrolson, owner of Cornerstone Cottage Kids. “I never thought it would turn into something this exciting.”
“One thing I like about Franklin County is that we know how to support each other,” said Craig Donnelly of radio station KLMJ. “When the folks at Cornerstone Cottage Kids approached me about World Book Night, I knew it was something special, and wanted to find a way to support it,” continued Donnelly.
“I let the national World Book Night (WBN) office know that we wanted to distribute copies of The Hunger Games at a special showing of the movie, so they reserved 80 copies especially for us,” said Keri Rojas, Cornerstone Cottage Kids employee and area manager of WBN activities. “I’m grateful that WBN captured the imagination of area residents, business owners and organizations.” Volunteers will pass out over 500 books at various locations around town and in north central Iowa as part of 50,000 specially printed books which will be given away nationally on a single night.
Area residents can listen to KLMJ radio, or follow the fun on Facebook (facebook.com/cornerstonecottagekids) to learn book distribution locations and times.
World Book Night USA is a non-profit organization that coordinates donations from printers, publishers, authors, bookstores, libraries and thousands of volunteers to put 500,000 free books into the hands of non- and light-readers across America all in one day. Cornerstone Cottage Kids is both the regional and state coordinator of World Book Night efforts in Iowa.
Look for more information on the National efforts in the Sunday, April 22 issue of Parade magazine.