Authors For Earth Day: Supporting Conservation Through Literacy - Founder Brooke Bessesen Explains How You Can Get Involved!

The Authors For Earth Day website

Calling all PAL members who do school visits! We are building a community of colleagues to help kids care for the environment and—WE WANT YOU!

Authors for Earth Day (A4ED) is an international coalition of award-winning authors and illustrators working in all genres of children’s literature. Most of us are SCBWI PAL members, too. Together, we give kids the chance to shape their future (and ours!) by directing substantial funds to conservation based on democratic principles. Since 2010, we have mentored tens of thousands of students and contributed nearly $25,000 to local and international conservation organizations via votes from young readers. Here are a couple recent articles about our work:

School Library Journal Kid Lit Authors Unite for Earth Day

Publishers Weekly 'Authors for Earth Day' Gears Up for 2013 Celebrations 

Please join us! Just designate one of your April school visits as an A4ED event. We will give you all the resources to forward to the school. You pick your favorite five organizations for the students to research as “nominees” and on the day of your visit, you do your normal presentations while teachers oversee a vote. Then, in celebration of voice, you donate at least 30 percent of that day’s speaking fee to the winning organization.

Just imagine the impact for the kids! They really get into it—and you will too! And since the school pays you in the normal fashion and you handle the donation, you get the tax-credit.

It was so generous of [visiting author, April Pulley Sayre] to make a $600 donation on behalf of our students and to give [them] the opportunity to do an authentic research project with real-world impact. – Hella Rumschlag, library media specialist, Mohawk Trails Elementary, Carmel, CA

Once you have scheduled an April school visit, we will build you a gorgeous Participant Page to share details about your books, author visits and A4ED events. Our website (www.AuthorsForEarthDay.org) also provides lots of resources for schools, including author visit funding ideas and common core connections.

Curious to see who else is involved? Come meet our team—you’ll recognize many acclaimed SCBWI friends and colleagues—and then become part of our grassroots movement to inspire and empower kids to speak up for our blue planet!

I can’t wait to hear from you!


Brooke Bessesen, Director A4ED

You can contact Brooke at info (at) authorsforearthday (dot) org