Need to Read-a-Thon!

Amy Holter, AmeriCorps VIP at RL Stevens Elementary

Sonoma County District Supervisor Efren Carrillo encourages students to read.

Learn to read, so you can read to learn. That was the message sent by District Supervisor, Efren Carrillo, when he addressed 80 students at the CalSERVES Need to Read Festival on Monday, May 9, 2011. The Need to Read Festival came at the end of a three-week read-a-thon held at all eight CalSERVES elementary schools.

The read-a-thon was an opportunity for students to measure how much they read outside of school. Top readers were invited to the Need to Read Festival and had a great time dressing up as storybook characters, painting their faces and eating healthy, refreshing snow cones.

The event was a community affair. Full funding for the event was provided by the Active 20-30 Club #50, an organization that raises money for children in Santa Rosa. The read-a-thon also provided a chance to raise funds to purchase high-quality books for CalSERVES libraries. CalSERVES would like to thank the Active 20-30 club #1029, Umpqua Bank, Whole Foods and Copperfield’s Books who sponsored the book drive.

Summertime is often an enemy of continued academic progress. With summer just around the corner, it is very important for students to increase the amount of time they read at home. Please remember the message of the read-a-thon and encourage your students to embrace learning through reading even after they go home for vacation.

Congratulations to all the students who worked so hard to make the read-a-thon a huge success!