January 2005 Newsletter

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.

We are off to a great start already in the new year. Already we have added our first schools in Alaska; Davis-Ramoth School in Selawik and Mountain View Elementary in Anchorage. We also added four more schools in Massachusetts; Massasoit School in Braintree, Easthampton High School in Easthampton, Peck Middle School in Holyoke and Memorial Elementary in West Springfield. We are also now in North Carolina with our first shipment to the Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School in Hollister, North Carolina. All these and it is still early January!

Here is a note from Peck Middle School:

Dear David,

Thank you for our first shipment of books. The kids are thrilled! You did a great job on choosing the types of books that would entice my students to actually pick one up and want to read it. (The Al Capone book is a big hit!)

Thank you again, the kids really appreciate it.

Warm Regards,

Lynn Lajoie
Peck Middle School
Holyoke, MA

Out on the west coast, Martin Luther King Elementary in Compton received 395 books and Kelly Elementary in Compton received 346 books. These books were collected by 13-year-old Alex Engel of West Los Angeles, who this past spring organized a children's book drive that brought in 2,000 books for Compton's schools. In the invitation for his bar mitzvah, he encouraged guests to bring books to his bar mitzvah and even set up reading related centerpieces for each table. The enthusiasm Alex and his father showed for this project was exceptional and we are so glad he chose a Reader To Reader book drive as his mitvah project. Kudos to them both!

I would like to share another letter with you. I think it so eloquently shows the impact that the book donations are having.

Dear Mr. Mazor,

I am writing to thank you for your ongoing generosity in helping us create a library for our students. As you know the vast majority of the students we serve are children of poverty and deprivation. These same students are also struggling with major mental illness and prior to being placed within our program had not been successful in school.

Before we found your Reader To Reader program we were without a library for our students. We had begun the slow and tedious task of getting friends, neighbors and family to donate books that their children had out-grown. At the rate we were going it would have taken years for us to develop an adequate supply of books.

Thanks to your efforts and generosity we now have a wonderfully stocked library. One that the children enjoy greatly.

I also wanted to share with you a story about one of our students. J. is a wonderful 10 year old boy who, when he came to us, could not read at all. He had been diagnosed as having a profound learning disability and try as he would he did not seem able to make gains with his reading. Then, we received from you, a wonderful donation of Dr. Seuss books. J. was excited by them and wanted them read to him on a regular basis. Soon he began to sound out the words with those of us who were reading to him. Before long, J. began reading the books himself. Now, thanks to you, Dr. Seuss and our wonderful staff, he can quite ably read these books, and more. It brought two of the staff to tears to see him read after struggling for over two years.

I am sure that over the years we will continue to have wonderful success stories like this one. It is no small gift to this program and to the students to now have a well-stocked library. It has been a wonderful gift to all of us.

Thank you David.

With great appreciation,

Simon Taylor, MSW, LICSW
Clinical Coordinator
Holyoke Alternative Program
Holyoke Public Schools

Our thanks to the Barnes & Noble Bookseller in Hadley, MA. They have enthusiastically agreed to extend their "Purchase a book for Reader To Reader" holiday book drive until the end of January. I can't wait for next month when I can tell you how many new children's books have been donated.

Also, our special thanks to Theresa Santmann of Babylon, NY. It's not every day that we get a 200-pound box filled with hundreds of new children's books. Kids across the country are now enjoying the adventures of Kiss A Me the dolphin.

That's all for now.

Until next month,

David Mazor
Reader To Reader
http://www.readertoreader.org
email: dmazor@readertoreader.org

Please help us with a tax-deductible donation.

Here are just a few of our recent book shipments:

William McKinley School

Help the Animals of Africa
What Moms Can Do
Reptiles
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey
Rendezvous With Rama
The Face of Tibet
National Geographic Atlas of the Ocean
150 more

Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona Beach, FL

Joseph Albers: Glass Color Light
The Reformation
Freedom Is Freedom Ain't
When Germs Travel
Bridging the Achievement Gap
11 more

Elm Park Elementary, Worcester, MA

Curly Hare
Oscarpus
Blufallo
Rosebud
Monday's Troll
Wilderness Challenge
Franklin Wants a Pet
Follow Those Feet
Lizards
100 more

Mountain View Elementary, Anchorage, AK

Where The Wild Things Are
In the Forest
The Hunt For Spring
Stinky Smelly Feet
Pearl
The Care & Keeping of Friends,
There is a Carrot in My Ear
Witch Hunt
Puppy Midge
Kiss A Me To The Rescue
Falcon Eddie
70 more

Jefferson High School, Fayette, MS

Into Thin Air
Roll Of Thunder Hear My Cry
Having Our Say
The Promise
Hard Road To Freedom
Elements of Style
Sea Biscuit
Mama Day
Wolf Wing
Algebra the Easy Way
Raven of the Waves
20 more

Navajo Pine High School, Navajo, NM

Friday Night Lights
People of the Sacred Arrows
Mountain Wolf Woman
The Tempest
King Lear
The Proud Tower
Skinwalkers
Prediabetes
Aesop's Fables
Othello
110 more

A.P. Toureaud Elementary, New Orleans, LA

Winnie The Pooh
Amazing Grace
Amelia Bedelia Helps Out
I Love my Family
Going Paces
Manatees
Is it Spring?
Vera The Mouse
Big Al
One Little Monkey
95 more

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!