Broadwater Elementary students in Helena receive 252 free books
Broadwater students in Helena each chose five free books, the school’s second book fair of the year, as donors backed a local push to widen reading access.
More than 250 Broadwater Elementary students in Helena each brought home five free books from a Scholastic-stocked fair, giving the PK-5 school a second schoolwide book distribution in the 2025-26 year and another boost for early reading at home.
The effort came through KTVH’s If You Give a Child a Book campaign with the Scripps Howard Fund, which raised $16,380 for books this year. About $2,000 came from KTVH’s two-week internal campaign in August, and another $1,500 came from its two-week external campaign in August and September, with matching money from the Scripps Howard Fund increasing the total impact. KTVH has said the campaign is aimed at Title I schools and is 100% donor-funded, with every penny staying local to purchase books.
Broadwater principal Kellie Boedecker said the school’s needs make the campaign especially meaningful. “We feel that this is such a gift to our community because we do have a higher level of poverty in our school,” Boedecker said. Helena Public Schools lists Boedecker as principal of Broadwater Elementary, a public school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in Helena.
The book fair also landed in a wider reading crisis that reaches far beyond Lewis and Clark County. The National Center for Education Statistics’ 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress results show only 31% of fourth graders nationwide read at or above a proficient level. The same results showed average reading scores for fourth and eighth graders declined from 2022, underscoring how access to books remains a practical, day-to-day issue for families and schools.
Broadwater has become a repeat beneficiary of the program. KTVH reported that students received five free books in January, making the latest distribution the second book fair of the school year. In earlier years, the campaign sent six free books home per student, and another year Broadwater students brought home eight books each across two fairs. For Helena classrooms, the pattern points to something larger than a one-day event: a continuing literacy push that keeps adding books to homes where reading habits start long before the next standardized test.
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