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HarbourCats team up with Bastion Books to bring back Harvey’s Reading Club

HarbourCats and Bastions Books offer students free game tickets in an effort to promote child literacy
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Bastion Books owner Alex Cruikshank and HarbourCats mascot Harvey at the launch of Harvey’s Reading Club at George Jay Elementary School in 2019. (Courtesy Victoria HarbourCats)

The Victoria HarbourCats and Bastion Books, an independent local bookstore located in Victoria’s Bastion Square, are once again teaming up this year to provide Greater Victoria students free game tickets for doing something beneficial and enjoyable — reading.

Students reading 30 hours or more from March 6 until July 3 will receive two free HarbourCats game tickets as part of Harvey’s Reading Club with Bastion Books.

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Launched in 2019, Harvey’s Reading Club distributed over 300 reading logs to students (kindergarten through Grade 8) throughout School District 61 and 62.

In its first year, over 15 per cent of students returned their logs, which amounted to 1,143 hours of reading. Students were rewarded for their efforts with free HarbourCats tickets, with over 35 per cent of tickets going to first-time HarbourCats attendees.

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“This was a fun way to encourage reading, and for kids to be rewarded for it,” Alex Cruikshank, owner of Bastion Books, said. “I was very pleasantly surprised with the response to the program in 2019, and in 2020 we want to expand on that by giving students more opportunity to read and to be rewarded for that reading.”

Reading logs will be available beginning March 6. Participants will have 17 weeks to complete 30 hours of reading. Complete reading logs can be dropped off at Bastion Books (14 Bastion Sq.), or participants can take a picture of their log and e-mail it to alex@bastionbooks.ca, and pick-up their tickets at the HarbourCats office (101-1814 Vancouver St.).


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