The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. –Dr. Seuss
Last Friday was Read Across America Day, the annual culminating celebration of the National Education Association‘s year-round reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading. It is observed every year on Dr. Seuss’s birthday, March 2. This year, we packed up our red and white hats and our favorite Dr. Seuss books and paid a visit to the students at Durham Public Schools’ Whitted School. Opened on August 31, 2017, the Whitted School provides a high-quality pre-k program to Durham County 4-year-olds, which will greatly impact their kindergarten readiness. Priority is given to children living in zones for C.C. Spaulding, Eastway, Fayetteville Street, Lakewood, W.G. Pearson, and Y.E. Smith elementary schools.
We had a blast sharing books with the approximately 140 students enrolled at Whitted! As you’ll see below, each child got to fill a bag with three books of their own choosing, both Dr. Seuss titles and favorites from other authors as well. They were SO excited when they learned that they could take the books home to keep forever! We are especially grateful to our friends at Sands Anderson PC who donated over 250 brand new books for the event, including titles in Spanish and books featuring diverse characters and written by diverse authors. They were a huge hit!
We also used the day to officially kick off our Community Book Bank partnership with the Whitted School. The new bookshelf in the lobby of the school will always be filled with books for the students to choose for themselves and take home to keep forever. Many thanks to Director Albertina Townsend for posing with the new shelf–all decked out in her pajamas for pajama day at the school!
