Read for Trees is a new initiative from Horowhenua Libraries that involves a sustainable intergenerational reading programme and helps build living legacies for the Horowhenua community.
After running the early 2020s gauntlet of take-home craft packs and socially distanced check-ins, Libraries Horowhenua had designed summer reading programmes to draw tamariki back into the library with bingo cards and easy incentives. Some were very motivated by picking trinkets from the prize bin, but as kaimahi, we felt uninspired and recognised that many parents felt the same about adding more waste to their homes and landfills.
A reading programme should appeal to Tamariki. But we also need enthusiastic parents and whanau to champion summer reading. Then, during a lazy Sunday doomscroll last year, spotting a 2024 tree-planting initiative by the Burlington Public Library, the seed was planted. The idea began to germinate at our next team meeting, and we started to branch out to potential partners.
The Friends of the Horowhenua Library were excited to support the idea, as was our Council Parks and Property team, who connected us to Green by Nature. In that meeting, we were quickly humbled by the price of a tree. Just as quickly, Green by Nature announced that they would happily donate their stock of 21 large native trees to the cause! Phew!
With supporting partners and flora in hand, our attention turned to untangling how a shared community goal could meaningfully shape our summer reading challenge. Not only could it contribute to building our sense of community, but by pivoting from individual incentives to collective contributions to our whenua, this might not just be for children...
With an intergenerational reading programme, we could promote reading for pleasure for children and adults together, engaging adults as reading role models, while developing our neighbourhood amenities to create a lasting impact for future generations.
READ FOR TREES TAKES ROOT
As Read for Trees took root, we have developed a variety of ways for our community to participate. Enthusiastic support from our graphics team resulted in a hands-on booklet to keep for tamariki, challenge reading cards for teens and adults and beautiful custom badges to earn through Beanstack. For every 50 pages read, a ‘leaf’ was earned, and every 100 ‘leaves’ unlocked a tree for planting. The extra sprinkle of magic was reading together, earning everyone leaves, and further encouraging parents and grandparents to serve as reading role models.
We decided to run Read for Trees throughout the summer, from 1st December to 1st March. This would allow us to launch at the Christmas parade and promote to classes before school finished. Ending later was well timed for autumn planting and gave time for infrequent readers to establish reading for pleasure habits.
UPTAKE EXCEED EXPECTATIONS
Uptake soon surpassed our expectations and calculations. Beanstack made logging books fun and easy, especially for families with multiple children, and enabled real-time tree-tracking. We had worried that 5,000 pages per tree would seem insurmountable. But we didn't anticipate how meaningful it would be to plant one tree for our community, with kids and adults alike excited to contribute.
Then there was the handful of tamariki that got blooming excited to read for trees, and by the halfway mark, we had already ‘unlocked’ our full quota of trees. Eeek! Here’s where the wonderful Friends of the Horowhenua Library happily saved our bacon with the extra funding required to see us through to the end of the challenge –just!
The community planting day turned our reading achievements into 42 beautiful living legacies. Green By Nature ensured that tree planting was ecologically appropriate, sustainable and educational and even provided our hungry planters with a sausage sizzle!
Planting together strengthened neighbourhood connections and fostered a shared sense of purpose and pride. It was hands-on, fun and sparked conversations around kaitiakitanga and collective responsibility.
READ FOR TREES DEVELOPS INTO READ FOR BEES
This summer, we’ve taken what we learned from Read for Trees and what we loved about it to produce the sequel: Read for Bees!
On the way back from LIANZA 2025, our team initially laughed at the rhyme, but with our wheels turning and the post-conference buzz, we realised we could be on to something! This time, we’re encouraging a highly localised sense of community, alongside friendly competition, by having our readers track their pages and nominate their local school.
Green By Nature will install a beautiful new pollinator garden at the school with the most pages read. With this competitive element, we hope to activate kaiako as summer reading champions, and with uncapped reading potential, we won’t run out of funds or flora. We’ve added an activity foldout encouraging tamariki to support biodiversity in their own backyards. At its roots, the success of Read for Trees came down to the joy we had in growing it and connecting with those around us, demonstrating that when we work together and read together, we can grow great things.
Samantha Tibbs is the Children’s Learning Librarian at Libraries Horowhenua and Jennifer Walton is the Library Engagement Team Lead.
