Rotarians Just Keep On Giving
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Del.icio.usChristmas came a little early to Blanche Pope, Waimanalo and Maunawili elementary schools.
Thanks to three grants and many donations, more than 800 books were delivered to the schools by the Rotary Club of Windward Oahu Sunrise and other community volunteers.
On Dec. 16, the Waimanalo schools got 252 new books. Every student in preschool through grade 2 received a new book. The bearers of these gifts, who also read to the keiki, were Rotarians and members of Windward YMCA’s arthritis pool class and of Pi Lambda Theta-Hawaii.
“This is one of the neatest things Rotary does,“said Gale Warshawsky, president of the Sunrise club.“Rotary is really big on literacy work because reading sets the children up to succeed for the rest of their lives.”
Warshawsky, who spear-headed the grant requests and donations, registered last June for help from First Books, which provides new books to needy children, Title I schools and groups like that support the schools. In July - to her amazement - the Sunrise club won a $568 grant and promptly bought 252 books.
Second, came a Rotary District Simplified Grant - Phase 1. Because First Books supports only Title I schools, Warshawsky was determined to get books to Maunawili Elementary, which does not qualify for federal Title I funds. She requested $100 from Rotary District 5000 to be matched by $100 from Sunrise to buy 27 new books for Maunawili’s preschool library.
Third was a Phase 2 grant of $224 awarded Warshawsky and the club to purchase 170 books from Scholastic Literacy Partners. This meant a new book for every Maunawili student in grades K-1, as well as those being mentored there by Rotarians.
“Maunawili is the first school we supported, and we do all kinds of literacy projects with them,“she said.“And we wanted to include them because, although they were not Title 1 this year, next July they will become a Title 1 school again.”
They didn’t stop there. The club also wanted to give a book to each Maunawili preschoolers for holiday reading, so Warshawsky appealed to Friends of Kailua Library and asked if the Rotarians could choose books from their bookstore for the keiki. Of course, they said yes. Enough gently used books were donated to give to Maunawili’s preschoolers as well as Headstart students at Blanche Pope and Waimanalo Elementary.
The Rotary club also teamed up with University of Phoenix to conduct a book drive at the college where faculty and students were asked to donate a new book. They collected 253 more books, sorted them by grade level and divided them among schools throughout the island, including second-graders at Maunawili.
The Sunrise club also tapped into Hawaii’s successful drive to win the First Book national contest by registering the Waimanalo schools for the contest. Hawaii’s prize is 50,000 books for registered Title 1 schools. When the books arrive here early in 2010, each student in grades 3-8 at Blanch Pope and Waimanalo Elementary and Intermediate will get one.
The club has also initiated the process with the DOE to register all Title I schools. (To start the process, go to http://booksforkids.first-book.org/register).
“Rotary does such as good job with literacy and that’s why I’m a Rotarian,” added Warshawsky.
That’s an understatement!
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