Mike Murri

Scripps Media's WXYZ-TV/WMYD-TV (Detroit) has announced the kickoff of the 2025 "If You Give A Child A Book" campaign.  Employees at the stations along with the Scripps Howard Foundation, have made it their mission to get high-quality books to the children in their community. This past summer, the station did a call-out for donations from employees and the community. With those collected funds and with a matching contribution from the Scripps Howard Foundation, they are able to give more than 20,000 books to children in the community this year.

In partnership with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan and Scholastic, WXYZ-TV is distributing books at partner schools in the Detroit and metro Detroit area through various events and book drive-thrus. Books are chosen to be specific to each school and classroom.

“It does get bigger and better every year, and I can't think of a better way to start the year out than with our 'If You Give A Child A Book' campaign,” said Mike Murri, WXYZ-TV & WMYD-TV20 Detroit vice president and general manager. “Because of the generosity from our community, our employees, we're able to start this year out by distributing over 20,000 new, age-appropriate books to children in metro Detroit — and the need has never been greater. The impact is tremendous, it's transformative for these children.”

The book giveaway events started this week with a kickoff book drive at Pepper Elementary in Oak Park. Each student was able to pick out five brand new books.