The Times News, Lehigh Valley Press and Vigilant Fire Company are partnering to hold a used book sale in a fundraising effort to support over 2,000 local students.

The sale will be held from April 30-May 3, at the Vigilant Fire Company, No. 2, 110 S. Walnut St., Slatington.

Proceeds will benefit the Times News Media Group Newspaper in Education program, established to bring newspapers to the classroom as an educational resource.

NIE provides a means for students to learn literacy through community relevant subject matter — in turn, educating students and fostering an interest in local news.

Chris Kimmel, a third-grade teacher at S.S. Palmer Elementary, has used newspapers in the past year in his classroom.

“This program has been extremely beneficial for our students this year. By having the newspapers, we have been able to extend what the students are learning in class,” Kimmel said. “This presents an opportunity for students to apply what they learn and make real-world connections.”

Kimmel said students can also learn about different careers that might interest them.

This year, the students read about Dakota Dailey, a Palmerton native who completed an internship with NASA.

He came in to speak to the students about his career in engineering and the students absolutely loved this experience.

“Each week the students look forward to reading the newspaper, and as a teacher, I cannot express how thankful I am to have the newspapers to help add to the students’ educational experiences,” Kimmel said.

Newspapers in Education has the benefit of not only continuing to promote literacy education, it also helps galvanize young students’ desire to learn about what is happening locally.

With generational changes shifting the landscape of how and what we learn, young students are in a constant state of connectedness to media and news outlets that inform of global trending events, but not of local happenings that directly affect them on a daily basis.

Times News Advertising director Jen Benninger uses her daughter as an example.

“She watches all types of things on YouTube, but she knows more about the Australian wildfires than my husband,” Benninger said.

“My daughter said to me, ‘Did you know fires in Australia are hurting the animals down there?’ That’s news. Young kids are listening, but they are getting it from sources that they normally have access to, and this program makes local newspaper one of those sources.

“If we show them, they’ll know, but if we don’t, they will continue to think YouTube is the news channel.”

This generation has an appetite for news, but with less of a focus on the local community.

The youth have a massive appetite to digest viral stories from global online outlets, and NIE is a tool to combat this by guiding students to become engaged with meaningful local news.

“I don’t want to be over dramatic, but I worry about our democracy as people read less and less about what is going on.

“If we can instill in students to read local news, our youth can be empowered to understand what is happening to them directly here and now,” said Jennifer Rowden, Times News Media Group director of marketing.

The main mission for the NIE Used Book Sale is to focus on families and youth development by showing how local newspapers are still relevant in the progress of our communities.

This fundraiser helps NIE account for the costs of the program to get newspapers printed and delivered to more than 2,000 students in our local communities.

Local published authors will be at the event for two-hour time slots to speak with the public.

Donations of hardcovers, paperbacks, Books on Tape, CDs, Blu-ray, DVDs and video games can be dropped at the following locations:

• Times News building, 594 Blakeslee Blvd. Drive W., Lehighton

• Times News office, 200 E. Broad St., Tamaqua

• Colossal Radio, 195 S. First St., Lehighton

• Lehigh Valley Press, 1633 N. 26th St., Allentown

Book donations are being accepted through April 9.