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Dear Friend of Reader To Reader, I hope you enjoy this newsletter about the Reader To Reader Book Project. Our success is very much due to your donations of books, postage money, and most of all your generous spirit. Please forward this newsletter and help us spread the word. I hope your summer is going well and I’ve got lots of news to share. Reader To Reader on the radio! Coming any day now is a feature on Reader To Reader to be broadcast on the American Public Media radio show, Marketplace. Check your local public radio station for broadcast times. Big news! Each year as we enter the new school year we have launched a major new initiative. Last year was our Louisiana Book Project and the year before we launched the Mississippi Book Project. I am pleased to report that both of these projects are going strong and continuing to expand due to the enthusiastic response from the schools and your generous support. We are also hard at work on this fall’s new initiative, which will bring the Reader To Reader program to inner-city schools in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit is one of the poorest major cities in the U.S and currently faces a looming $231 million fiscal shortfall in its 2006 budget. We have targeted seven of Detroit’s most under-resourced elementary schools for the initial year of the Detroit Elementary School Book Program. We will reach 3,686 students grades Pre-K to 5. Nearly all of these students are from families that live below the poverty line. I am also pleased to tell you that the first year of this initiative is made possible by your donations and a generous grant from the DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund. Here is a letter from Detroit’s Berry Elementary.
As we pack for Detroit we have been picking many of the children’s favorites that we receive regularly, including Junie B. Jones, The Hungry Caterpillar and the Harry Potter adventures. I also want to share with you one of the more interesting boxes we have recently shipped. Detroit’s Dickinson East Elementary placed a special request for children’s books that were both in Bengali and English to serve their large population of Bengali speaking children. After a thorough Internet search we were able to find Milet Publishing Ltd in London. They have a number of Bengali-English titles and we purchased both Bengali-English titles and Arabic-English titles that they also needed. The books included Rosie's Room (Bengali-English, Chameleon Races (Bengali-English), Chameleon Swims (Bengali-English), Come on, Daisy! (Bengali-English), Daisy and the Egg (Bengali - English), Eating (Bengali - English), The Lucky Grain of Corn (English-Bengali), Rama and the Demon King (English-Bengali), Carrying (Arabic-English), Eating (Arabic-English), and Smiling (Arabic-English). The shipment drew rave reviews from Dickinson East Elementary.
Last but certainly not least this month, I would like to thank the Paster family for all their efforts. When 13-year-old Jack Paster picked a Reader To Reader book drive for his Bar Mitzvah project it was our lucky day. He truly put his heart into collecting not only 1,000 books (many new) but also raised donations of over $3,000. Jack and his parents, Barry and Deirdre, sorted and categorized all the books, making our work much faster and easier. They put a great deal of time and effort in that will make our book shipments this fall better than ever. Thank you all and a special Mazel Tov to Jack Paster on his Bar Mitzvah. Until next month, Sincerely,
David Mazor Please help us with a tax-deductible donation. Here are just a few of our recent book shipments: Tohono O’Odham Community College, Sells, AZ
Drew High School, Drew, MS
Clara Hall Accelerated School, Monroe, LA
Leland High School, Leland, MS
Ray Brooks High School, Benoit, MS
Navajo Pine High School, Navajo, NM
Jefferson High School, Fayette, MS
Berg Jones Elementary, Monroe, LA
And that's just the tip of the iceberg! |