By William Smith
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed everything, even childhood reading.
In any other year, the Burlington Rotary Club would have visited elementary schools for its biannual reading program. However, the school year ended early courtesy of COVID-19.
“I would usually go into the schools and read to the kiddos, and then we would give them books,” Rotary Club Dominique Cornick said.
Each year, the Rotary Club and Burlington Education Foundation purchase books for each of the district’s pre-kindergarten through second-grade students. Every child 8 years old and younger receives at least two books that are initially read to them by a Rotarian. They then pick out an additional book.
Headstart and pre-headstart students get four books, and more books are provided to children in the WIC (Woman, Infants, and Children) program for low-income families. Hundreds of books are also given away at community events, such as the South Hill Easter Egg Hunt.
This year, the Rotary Club needed to get the books to students no longer in school. Since the Burlington School District has been providing free lunches for students, it was the perfect opportunity — free lunch with a side of literacy.
The take-home meals are distributed at three sites, including Burlington High School, North Hill Elementary, and Grimes Elementary School. At each location on Wednesday, two books per school lunch were handed off to surprised and grateful parents.
“This is the next best thing to going and reading to them,” Cornick said. “We’ve had some kids coming up on their bikes and picking out their books, which is awesome.”
The Rotary Club had 1,000 books they distributed on Wednesday, with about half of those provided by the Burlington Public Library.
The Burlington Rotary Club shifted its fundraising efforts from playgrounds to childhood literature about eight years ago, unleashing a flood of 50,000 books into the area.
Books aren’t immortal, but compared to the ephemeral nature of digital entertainment, they’re pretty darn close. The longevity is in the printed pages, no hardware required.
“We have enough playgrounds,” Sieren said, speaking about the club’s shift to literacy.
After building several playgrounds for $40,000 to $50,000 each, club members started questioning the point of over-saturation. Children have other needs, and the annual Rotary Club Chicken Dinner is the club’s primary method of meeting those needs.
“In an above-average income household, the ratio is about 30 age-appropriate books per child,” Sieren said. “For financially struggling families, its 30 kids for every book.”
Photo by William Smith
Burlington Rotary Club member Dominique Cornick picks out children’s books to hand to parents Wednesday at Grimes Elementary School during the Burlington School District’s ongoing free lunch program. The Rotary Club has given more than 50,000 books to children over the past eight years and had over 1,000 to give away on Wednesday. Half of those books were provided by the Burlington Public Library.