Books for Everyone!

Hola, my name is Rachel and I am a member of the Rotary Interact Club in Kirkland Lake. This past year, the Rotary Club’s focus was to bring awareness on literacy. In order to this, our Club decided to organize a fundraiser called, “Reading Relay”. What we did was set up a reading station at the busiest location in town, our local grocery store. The reading station consisted of a big comfy couch, a reading lamp, as well as a side table. People from the community would sign up to read for one hour in our cozy make shift living room. The cost was $20 and most local businesses would help out by sponsoring their employees to read. At the read station, we our Club members set up to supervise and to explain to members of our community why we were there. People thought our fund raiser was very cool and got involved by donating money. In the end, with the money raised through our reading participants and as well as local donations, we raised a thousand dollars! This past week, I participated on the Hero Holiday to the Dominican Republic. I brought the $1000 we raised with the fundraiser with me. Our Club’s goal was to buy as many books as we could to help improve education in the schools that Hero Holiday was building. With the $1000 we purchased the class room curriculum for the subjects: Math, Spanish, Science, and Social Studies (grades 1-4) for two schools along with some books for their libraries and other teaching tools. You see, in order for most children to go to school in the Dominican, students are often required to purchase their own curriculum books and they are expensive. The schools we purchased these books for will use them as a teaching tool and have the students copy the lessons from the book to their personal notebooks because the community can not afford these lesson books.It felt so incredible to witness the outcome and the impact of such a simple fund raiser that LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)ly anyone can organize. Education is such a fantastic and important thing that a lot of people take for granted. I know with the help of these books a lot more children will be able to attend school and have a brighter future. Just knowing that puts a smile on my face. I believe that so many people have potential and with that potential, you can make a difference.Quick tip for anyone wanting to do a fund raiser like the one or just to get the word out to your community is to contact your local newspaper and radio station. That way everyone can hear about it and get involved.Good Luck!~ Rachel, participant on Hero Holiday Dominican Republic 2009