Jacks Valley Elementary first-graders in Tracie Moultrup and Brandi Torres' class are helping other children while they help themselves this school year by participating in Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare program.
The program is a philanthropy-based literacy campaign designed to teach children about the joys and importance of reading and giving - and to encourage them to read every day to lead better lives.
This fall, each student is challenged to read 10 books and, in turn, Scholastic Book Clubs, a division of Scholastic, the global children's publishing and media company, will donate one million new books to disadvantaged children nationwide.
Through this year's ClassroomsCare program, called "The United States of Reading," participating classrooms are reading for charities in their home states. They can log onto the ClassroomsCare Web site to keep track of their progress along with their state's progress. Students, teachers, and parents are invited to go onto the site to see how the reading is making a difference. More than one million books will be distributed locally through three national charity partners whose shared mission is to help put books in the hands of the hardest to reach and neediest children: Reach Out and Read, Save the Children, and the Pajama Program.
"I smile every time I hear about a school where through their generosity and hard work, students are making a difference and improving the lives of others by participating in ClassroomsCare," said Judy Newman, president of Scholastic Book Clubs. "In order to better prepare the children of the 21st Century to live complete and successful lives, we need to energize them to read more books, and read everyday. And showing children that their hard work pays off and they can make a difference in the lives of others is motivating and important as they grow up."
"Scholastic Book Clubs ClassroomsCare program offers both students and teachers an opportunity to celebrate the importance of reading and to demonstrate our spirit of service and sharing," added Moultrup. "This year our class read 330 books while participating in this program."
The ClassroomsCare initiative is open to all classrooms nationwide through Scholastic Book Club catalogues and the Scholastic Web site.
For more information, visit www.scholastic.com.
