Bastion Books owner Alex Cruikshank (left) and Harvey at the launch of Harvey's Reading Club at George Jay Elementary School in 2019.

The Victoria HarbourCats and Bastion Books, the independent local bookstore, located in Victoria’s Bastion Square, are once again teaming up in 2020 to provide Victoria and area students with free game tickets for doing something beneficial and enjoyable — reading.

From March 6th to July 3rd, any student reading 30 hours or more in that time frame will receive two free game tickets, as part of HARVEY’S READING CLUB with Bastion Books.

Launched in 2019, Harvey’s Reading Club became a wonderful success, with over 300 reading logs distributed to students at a number of schools throughout School Districts 61 and 62.  Over 15% of the students (Grades K-8) returned their logs, which amounted to over 1,143 hours of reading combined.  Students were rewarded for their efforts with free HarbourCats tickets and over 35% of these went to first time HarbourCats attendees.

“This was a fun way to encourage reading, and for kids to be rewarded for it,” said Alex Cruikshank, owner of Bastion Books. “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.”

For 2020, reading logs will be available beginning Friday March 6, 2020, with all reading to be completed by July 3, 2020. That provides kids 17 weeks (119 days) to complete 30 hours (1,800) of reading which equates to just 15 minutes a day.  All students completing 30 hours of reading and returning their logs to either Bastion Books or the HarbourCats, will then receive TWO free ticket vouchers that can be redeemed for any 2020 regular season HarbourCats game.

To register for Harvey’s Reading Club, contact Bastion Books (drop in at 14 Bastion Square in Victoria or call 250-385-8786) for reading logs. Once students have logged 30 hours they can bring their completed reading log into the store in exchange for tickets, or take a picture of the log and send it to Bastion Books (E-Mail: [email protected]) and then pick up their free tickets through the HarbourCats Office (101-1814 Vancouver Street).