March- Rotary Literacy Month

March is Rotary literacy month. In 1985, Rotary declared basic literacy to be a pre-condition to the development of world peace. From that time forward world literacy has received increased emphasis as selection criteria for international service projects. RI President John Kenny reiterated this point earlier this year when he asserted that "Our service projects in water, health and hunger, and literacy help eliminate many of the practical obstacles to peace." Literacy is fundamental to improving the human condition and to achieving Rotary's goal of building international understanding, goodwill, and peace. Over the years, several of our international service projects have targeted illiteracy while addressing basic human needs. This is certainly true of the water projects we've sponsored and of our investment in sanitary facilities at a school in India. Both of these projects had the secondary benefit of enabling school girls to attend class. More recently, our support of the Burton club's preventable blindness initiative improved the lives of those impacted while addressing a significant impediment to literacy. Closer to home, we all feel the impact of illiteracy on our society and the need to work toward solutions. RI sites the following statistics: "Three out of four of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five American inmates are illiterate...It is estimated that the cost of illiteracy to business and the taxpayer is $20 billion per year." Illiteracy is everyone's concern! Locally we have several initiatives underway that in some small way may combat illiteracy and change a life for the better. Once again we have partnered with other Area 7 clubs on a literacy project. The focus this year is on providing the schools with informational books that requires a different set of reading skills than are required for reading fiction. Mastering these skill sets are a MEAP requirement. A set of books appropriate for third grade level readers will be provided to each public school library and to several of the larger parochial schools in Area 7. The books will be available for distribution to the schools by club members in March. Books collected earlier this year during the Sorrentos book drive were delivered to the Flushing administration building following the fundraiser. Reading resource staff members sorted through the donated books and retained those suitable for use at the school. Don Peters arranged for the balance of the books (about 30 boxes) to be delivered to St. Robert's office where they will be distributed among the churches that comprise the Flushing Christian Outreach Center. Dave Bennett and Tracey Ledford are working with Kaye Brisson at the Flushing Early Childhood Center on another book project that will collect books for the ECC library and also provide books to be distributed to those ECC students who are unlikely to have print materials in the home. Sorrentos once again has stepped up in a big way and will donate a portion of their profits on March 22 food sales toward the purchase of books for the Center. Dave and Tracey have begun organizing a concurrent book drive with Sorrentos and several other Flushing area businesses to collect age appropriate, new and gently used, books for the project beginning March 22nd. We have been in contact with Jennifer Scherba who is a third grade teacher at Seymour Elementary. Jennifer would love to have Rotary club members come into her classroom and read to her students. She has reading times available at 12:30pm or 3:00pm on Thursday or Friday of each week (schools are closed March 25 & 26). We are hopeful that this collaboration will result in a higher level of engagement with the schools. Ginny has volunteered to coordinate the reader schedule with the teacher. Please let her know if you would like to be a reader. Michelle Blair and a colleague will speak at our club on March 25 regarding the state of literacy in our community. They will also discuss ways that we can work with the schools to improve literacy rates in our community. Don Peters and Marty Barta are working with Nicole Lord at Flushing High School to develop an initiative that places Rotarians or other community member in a small group dialogue with students who have stated similar vocational aspirations. This activity, which dovetails with the Senior Seminar curriculum, will provide the students with an opportunity to get real life feedback regarding the career they have chosen. Our first Career Day is set for March 22. Gary Whitmire will lead our Ethics panel again this year and will soon be calling together a number of Rotarians to serve on this year's panel. We do not anticipate any significant changes from the format that Gary introduced last year. John Daly has volunteered to head up a committee for an annual Vocational Recognition Award. The award will recognize an individual who lives or works in the Flushing community, who exemplifies outstanding professional achievement, demonstrates high ethical standards and contributes his/her talents to society. Nominations will be solicited beginning in May and the award will be made in October during Rotary Vocation month. Empowering people through literacy is a powerful transformational formula for addressing the needs of our society and the world. Be a part of the future now!