{"id":213283,"date":"2026-02-20T18:02:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/?p=213283"},"modified":"2026-02-20T18:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:08:21","slug":"english-and-child-advocacy-complete-childrens-book-drive-for-bridge-of-books-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/2026\/02\/20\/english-and-child-advocacy-complete-childrens-book-drive-for-bridge-of-books-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"English and Child Advocacy Complete Children\u2019s Book Drive for Bridge of Books Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Faculty, students, and staff from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/\">English<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/social-work-and-child-advocacy\/\">Social Work and Child Advocacy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/history\/\">History<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/interdisciplinary-school-for-social-transformation\/\">Interdisciplinary School for Social Transformation<\/a> completed a children\u2019s book drive benefiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/bridgeofbooksfoundation.org\/\">Bridge of Books Foundation<\/a>, donating 13 boxes of like\u2011new books for young readers across New Jersey. Bridge of Books provides an ongoing source of new and gently used books to children in underserved communities to support literacy and a love of reading.<\/p>\n<p>The drive was organized by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=nielsenw\">Wendy C. Nielsen<\/a> (English Department), in collaboration with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=dudecklenisj\">Jennifer Dudeck\u2011Lenis<\/a> (Social Work and Child Advocacy) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=gonzalezje\">Jeff Gonzalez<\/a> (English), who delivered the donations to Bridge of Books in Monmouth County. Contributors included but are not limited to the Child Advocacy Club (President Jaclyn Alicea and Secretary Ashley Rahill, mentored by Nydia Monagas and Jennifer Dudeck\u2011Lenis), the English Club (advised by Jeffrey Gonzalez), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=dippolds\">Steffi Dippold<\/a> (History and English), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=nicosiala\">Laura Nicosia<\/a> (English and ISST), Wendy Nielsen, their students, and English alumna Chloe Driscoll.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Access to books is access to possibility. This collaboration showed what our community can accomplish together\u2014from student leaders and alumni to staff and faculty\u2014so more New Jersey kids can become addicted to reading and the world of imagination.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: smaller;color: #000000\">\u2013 Wendy C. Nielsen, faculty organizer<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>About Bridge of Books Foundation<\/strong><br \/>\nFounded in New Jersey in 2003, Bridge of Books has grown from a volunteer\u2011led effort into a statewide partner that collects and distributes books through drives, individual donations, publishers, and community events\u2014always with the goal of getting as many books as possible into the hands of kids who need them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Faculty, students, and staff from English, Social Work and Child Advocacy, History, and the Interdisciplinary School for Social Transformation completed a children\u2019s book drive benefiting the Bridge of Books Foundation, donating 13 boxes of like\u2011new books for young readers across New Jersey. Bridge of Books provides an ongoing source of new and gently used books [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":213285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,16,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20_chss-news","category-57_english-department","category-149_history-department","category-social-work-and-child-advocacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213283"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213289,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213283\/revisions\/213289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}