One of the club’s favorite projects each year is book delivery to every student at a chosen Title One elementary school in Boise. That school was Hawthorne this year. There is usually a book fair in the fall at the elementary schools. We asked the teachers and the librarian to gently poll the students to identify their favorite book and then the faculty went quiet. Those names and chosen titles were supplied to Boise Sunrise and to Idaho Book Fairs so that this order (~325 books) could be fulfilled by a local business. Last week, we brought a team of ~15 Rotarians to deliver these books. Oh what a delightful morning.
Two stories stand out. One involved a girl in the 4th grade class. She received her book and, about a minute later, said to us, “I have two questions. Is this the book I chose and do I get to keep this book?” We answered with a pair of “YES” replies and this student proceeded to execute one of the most enthusiastic fist pumps we had seen in a while. Woo Hoo!
The other story involved books to a special needs kindergarten class. After ensuring that everyone had received a book, the team began to file out of the classroom. One of the club members stopped to talk to the teacher and when he turned around, three young students were right behind him holding out their new books and asking him to read to them. Oh my, these are memories that will never fade!
At Boise Sunrise, we seek to leave it better than we found it. We believe that an aspirational goal was achieved with this book delivery project. We shamelessly advocated for readers and reading, and we left a bunch of grateful smiles in our wake after delivering these chosen books to every student at the school.
We thank the staff at Hawthorne, our good friends at Idaho Book Fairs, and all of the students at Hawthorne for accommodating us wandering the halls for about 90 minutes. This is a project model that is easy to replicate and a result that is impactful to the students, the faculty, and the Rotarians of Boise Sunrise. Readers are Leaders!
