Black-Tie Imaginary Ball to benefit Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Sponsored by the Valdosta Rotary Club
Take a second to read through this incredibly clever (and lucrative) Invitation!

10+ members of the Rotary Club of Tifton participated in a Dictionary Distribution Project in November 2021,
giving out 624 dictionaries to every third grader in Tift County.
Assistant District Governor Marion Curry had applied for and received approval of a District grant to purchase the
dictionaries, and club publicity chair Bonnie Sayles agreed to coordinate the project.
Sayles recruited members to talk to classes about Rotary Club International, literacy, and the features of the
dictionary.
Initially, club members met with representatives of the Tift County Foundation for Educational Excellence and
Literacy Volunteers of Tifton-Tift County on Nov. 1 to discuss the project, kicking off Family Literacy month.
When the books arrived, student volunteers from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, guided by the Literacy
Volunteers director, counted out the books for each of nine schools and attached labels designating them as gifts of
the Rotary Club. Liaisons with the Education Foundation arranged the days and times with the teachers and
principals of each school and took pictures on distribution day.
Club members were assigned schools to visit, and the visits kicked off on Nov. 11 and continued through Nov. 19.
Club members spoke individually to students in each classroom, describing the features of the dictionary, which is
called a "Gazetteer" because of its added features. One child pointed out to his classmates that the books contained
American Sign Language; another exclaimed over the periodic table. A third child pointed out the longest word
and shared the definition of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, a word you say when you don't know what else to
say. Another child was happy to see Roman numerals in the back of his book.
This dictionary, ordered from www.dictionaryproject.org, defines literacy as "the ability to listen, speak, read,
write, view, represent, compute, and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function in the family, in
the community, and on the job." Members shared that definition with the students and encouraged each student to
find one new word to share with their classmates and teachers after the Thanksgiving break.
Tift County school superintendent Adam Hathaway is determined to have all third graders reading at grade level.
The Rotary Club of Tifton spent about 30 hours in November helping the community reach that goal!

www.dictionaryproject.org, defines literacy as "the ability to listen, speak, read, write, view, represent, compute, and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function in the family, in the community, and on the job." Members shared that definition with the students and encouraged each student to find one new word to share with their classmates and teachers after the Thanksgiving break.
Tift County school superintendent Adam Hathaway is determined to have all third graders reading at grade level. The Rotary Club of Tifton spent about 30 hours in November helping the community reach that goal!

 

The Nashville-Berrien Rotary Club was excited and honored to be able to provide a dictionary
to each 3rd grader at Berrien Elementary School in December!

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Ocilla Rotary Club participated in Dictionary Give Away to 3rd Graders

Rotary Club of Effingham distributes The Four-Way Test Coloring Book

The Rotary Clubs of Camden County and Kings Bay
started our local literacy project many years ago calling it Wee Read. We now have over 350 children on our list
that are receiving a Dolly Parton's Imagination Library book a month until the age of 5. President Paula
from the Kings Bay club attended a recent meeting of the Camden County club meeting and presented to President
Elect Heath a check for $1,500.00.

Reading Rockets seek volunteers for Zoom pilot

• By LAUREN MCDONALD lmcdonald@thebrunswicknews.com  *

Nancy Matthews didn't need to be in the room on Thursday to provide the class of prekindergarten students at FACES with a captivating reading experience. Even from her home on St. Simons, the longtime Reading Rockets volunteer was able to connect with the students over Zoom and offer a high-energy reading of "Pete the Cat," a book clearly beloved by the class.

Matthews and other reading volunteers are in their second week of a new pilot version of the Reading Rockets program that launched this month and will run through the end of April. More volunteers are needed to read to the students during the next six weeks.

Reading Rockets, a program sponsored by the Rotary Club of St. Simons and offered through a partnership with Marshes of Glynn Libraries, has in past years brought readers into pre-K and kindergarten classes once a week in an effort to promote literacy for the community's youth.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented readers from going into classrooms. This new Zoom pilot, in which the readers are called "Zoomers," aims to be a creative solution to the pandemic's challenges. "We were hoping, of course, all along to be able to have our volunteers just go back in the classroom as usual and read to the children," said Linda Muir, co-chair of the St, Simons Island Rotary's literacy committee. "The program's been around for 12 years come summer, and we've always just gone through a process where people volunteer, get trained and then they get assigned to a certain class."

At the start of this year, the idea formed to offer weekly readings via Zoom, during which a volunteer reader shares a story from their home with one or two classes of students.

"This is kind of like the flip side of the distance learning, when the teachers read to the kids when the kids were at home on the computer," Muir said. "Now the readers are at home on the computer reading into the classrooms, and they see the reader and the book on the big screen that's been mounted in their classroom." Muir is one of around a dozen volunteer readers, and she's been able to read from her home in Atlanta. "Instead of seeing one person, I'm seeing the whole classroom and the children sitting in their little squares on the carpet," she said.

Leslie Mattingly, a member of the Rotary Club of St. Simons who got the whole club onto Zoom soon after the onset of the pandemic, has been instrumental in creating the new Zoom version of Reading Rockets, Muir said. And Glynn County Schools staff members played a key role in supporting the rollout into classrooms. Assistant superintendent Tere Miller and her assistant Sheila Farmer made contact with the teachers and helped coordinate the weekly readings. The Reading Rockets coordinators also worked with local teachers to make sure the new program would work in their classrooms.

"It's a bit of a pilot to see if this can work and how the readers like it, how the kids like it and the teachers," Muir said. "Even going forward ---and we're going to be back in the classrooms we hope --- we would still have this Zooming alternative for maybe teachers who prefer it or readers who prefer it." About 11 volunteer spots are open now for a variety of time slots at different schools.

Volunteers are asked to have at least a basic familiarity with Zoom and PowerPoint, as both programs are used during the weekly readings. Training will be provided for all volunteers, during which they will get to do a test run with one of the Reading Rockets coordinators. "Even though you're reading to a classroom full of kids and there's a teacher there who has to go through a little bit different process, it's not any different from talking to anybody else on Zoom," Muir said.

Books are selected for the volunteers each week and sent in PowerPoint form at the start of the week. At the time of the reading, volunteers send a Zoom invitation to the teacher, who will be expecting their message. "We get it all coordinated with the teacher," Muir said. "The teacher knows to expect an invitation, so you just send an invitation to a Zoom meeting just like you do anybody." The teacher will get the students settled in front of the big screen, and the reader will have the chance to share that week's story.

Those interested in volunteering can email Muir at ltmuirssi@gmail.com.

"This is pretty much a pilot to prove that this technology can be used as a tool for Reading Rockets, and we're hopeful that next year the classrooms will be open to visitors and the volunteers will feel comfortable to go into them," Muir said. "And we would hope that people would want to continue to be Reading Rocket volunteers next year."

FROM GLENNVILLE CLUB - - Don Fountain Makes NEWS!!!
Don reads to local elementary students as part of a team of Glennville Rotarians volunteering to read to a
class in either pre-K or Kindergarten.
The team members read every other Friday for 30 minutes.