Christmas comes early at Taft Elementary!

 

A team of 10 volunteers representing the Rotary Club of Boise Sunrise recently paid a delightful visit to Taft Elementary School in Boise. BSRC and Taft have collaborated on numerous projects in the past and Taft is the first school where the Everyday Leadership program was piloted and developed. We have a warm spot in our hearts for the students and staff at Taft.

 

 

This time, the project was in direct support of the club’s advocacy for reading and readers. John Lodal, next year’s club president, contacted the principal at Taft (Tim Lowe) and pitched the idea of giving books to EVERY student at the school before the holiday break. Tim agreed that this was a great project to support and put John in touch with Jessica Howell, the school librarian and Jenny Hirst, the community liaison for Taft.

This is when a good idea turned into a project with a little extra IMPACT when we were able to collaborate with Mrs. Howell. The school was about to host their annual book fair and she asked each student to fill out a wish list identifying their favorite book from that book fair. She also volunteered to personalize each book and then order the books from the book-fair company thus utilizing her educator discount.

 

 

We delivered ~250 books just before the Christmas break. This was more fun than a Rotarian is supposed to have because the arrival of the books was a surprise to the students. And we KNEW that we were delivering exactly what they wanted because the students were the ones who chose these titles. Sweet!!

 

 

While we were enjoying the smiles and the big eyes (above those masks…) as we handed out the books in each classroom, we also took a moment to acknowledge that this was a project that would indeed leave it better than we found it. It was also going to deliver that desired impact with this targeted book for each student and our shameless advocacy for literacy and reading. This one warmed the hearts of all of us as well as the students and the staff and volunteers at Taft. Thanks to everyone involved here!

 

 

PS – If other clubs would like to leverage this idea for a future Christmas project, the board and members of Boise Sunrise offer it up to all of District 5400’s Rotarians. This one worked out quite well!