Excitement filled the air on a Thursday afternoon at Memorial Elementary School in West Springfield as Mike Bertera of Bertera Auto Group settled into a chair in front of a giddy classroom of 1st graders. As the students quieted, Bertera began to read the book “Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival” about a blind cat and dog, both with bobbed tails, who leaned on each other during extremely challenging times. The children were hooked.
Bertera Auto Group is Memorial Elementary School’s Community Book Link Sponsor, a program by local non-profit Link to Libraries that connects businesses and community members to elementary schools in support of childhood literacy. When a business or community member adopts a school through Community Book Link, that school’s library receives 200-250 new books each year.
