A WOMAN who started a community book pledge for the children's ward in Basingstoke hospital has extended the fundraising to include two more hospitals. 

Becky Parsons, 36, runs Parsons Books in Basingstoke, in partnership with Usborne Books. Becky's goal from fundraising had initially been to supply brand new books for reading and learning to the play team, based on Basingstoke hospital's children's ward.

However, Becky decided to extend the book pledge to include Andover War Memorial Hospital and Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester to give kids in the hospitals across Hampshire the opportunity to read. 

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Becky said: "Everyone gets worn down in life, even books get worn, but hospital books should be replaceable. This fundraiser will supply books that can be wiped clean, get worn down and replaced with a duplicate, to continue the adventures all day long."

Usborne’s Community Book Pledge is a nationwide initiative to help communities across the UK and Europe benefit from more books, boosting literacy levels by encouraging reading for pleasure.

With the help of local businesses, thousands of communities across the UK and Europe have been able to fill their bookshelves and raise a new generation of confident and engaged readers. Supporting businesses will receive an acknowledgement by being sent a donor’s poster to proudly display at their workplace.

Becky said: "With the help of local businesses, we are aiming to collect £1,000 in donations for the community project, and Usborne will then generously provide an additional £600 worth of free books on top of this.

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"This money will allow us to completely transform our community's reading resources and allow all children to have access to a wide variety of high-quality fiction and non-fiction books to choose from and enjoy."

Becky added: "Any support or donations we get will be gratefully received, and if any business wants to do their bit to help, that would be amazing. It's a very worthwhile cause and being able to give the children in the hospitals these resources while they are going through a tough time is an incentive to try and raise as much as we can."

More information can be found at usborne.com/gb/partner/parsonsbooks_bas, or on Facebook at facebook.com/parsonsbooksbas. Information on how to donate can be found at justgiving.com/crowdfunding/basingstokeplayteam-bookpledge.