For this year's District Grant, the Rotary Club of Cuthbert has enjoyed a phenomenal partnership with Randolph County Elementary School. I truly believe that the blessing and enrichment of this project was felt on both sides. The club loved every minute of this Grant!

The Rotary Reads Project coincides with the Rotary Mission to improve education in our area. It also aligns the District Governor’s focus on state literacy. The State of Georgia is ranked 33^rd in K-12 Education in our nation. Randolph County is listed as a borderline distressed county with more than 25% of adults without a high school degree. Randolph County is also listed as less than 25% of 3^rd Grade students reading at proficiency or above. More than 25% of the population in Randolph County is in the poverty rate. Randolph County is also listed at less than 75% of the population is below the median household income ratio. * (Statistics from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce)

We read to over 70 first grades students on four different occasions this past year. We first met in September and read Quick as a Cricket, followed by Let’s Fly a Kite in October, SkyTree in January, and The Box Car Children in February.

During our last visit to the school we were able to shower our little readers with small gifts and sweet treats to celebrate a year full of reading. We were very excited to see, that with the help of the Fifth grade Ambassadors, they had transformed the First Grade school hallway in to a tribute of all the books we had read to them including butterflies from the ceiling.

After reading the four books, the teachers in the school wanted to in turn transpose our reading into a writing assignment. The students were tasked with writing an essay about their favorite book along with a pictorial description of the book. We were proud to meet and congratulate our essay winner Tydareon Baldwin on his winning essay on SkyTree. He and his family will come and meet with us in recognition of his achievement.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so please click on and share the attached pictures as a tribute to a successful Rotary Reads.