Since 2000, we’ve been running a summer reading program, in cooperation with the Berwyn and Cicero public libraries.

It’s simple. For every book a 6- to-15-year-old reads over the summer, they can fill out a raffle ticket. So, the more books they read, the more raffle tickets they get! At the end of the summer, we hold a big party to draw 20 winners from the pile of tickets – sometimes as many as 9,000 raffle tickets. Those 20 lucky readers each win a new bike and helmet. We call the bike recipients “lucky winners” because by reading books over the summer, they are all winners.