Le Bonté Women’s Club members donate 100 books to Head Start
Special to The Clinton Courier
Pictured (l to r) are Edwards Head Start Center Director LaToya Jones, Janie Fields and Carol Pate. The ladies are pictured with the Dr. Seuss books Clinton’s Le Bonté Women’s Club shared with the preschoolers as part of the March Read Across America program, begun in 1998 by the National Education Association.
Members of the Clinton Le Bonté Women’s Club recently called on two area Head Start centers with one hundred books, to continue the goal of promoting the importance of reading. Students at the St. Thomas Head Start Center in Bolton and the Edwards Head Start Center were recipients of the books that were shared with the children as an encouragement for reading.
The Dr. Seuss titles shared included Fox in Socks; The Eye Book; Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb; and Ten Apples Up on Top.
Le Bonté members collaborating on the project were project leader Amy Flournoy, Ruth Ann Broome, Paula Wimbish, Melinda Ellis, Carol Pate, Janie Fields and Serena Calhoun. Fields and Calhoun read several stories at the centers.
The reading support project that members of the club have supported for the past four years is timed in conjunction with Reading Across America Week each March.
“This year, we are glad to visit the schools and students and read to them, as well as share books with their names printed inside,” said Dee Dee Newman, club president. “The annual program underwent a change because of the interference of COVID-19,” she stated.
Ready to read and distribute Dr. Seuss books are (l to r), seated: Paula Wimbish, Melinda Ellis, Serena Calhoun and Janie Fields, who were welcomed to the Bolton St. Thomas Head Start School by Director Keyata Johnson (standing). Bookplates show that the books are from the Le Bonté Women’s Club, and the name of each boy and girl is written in his or her own book.
Flournoy pointed out that years of non-visits because of the pandemic resulted in deliveries of the books to the directors of the centers, with no interaction with the boys and girls.
“Members are enthusiastic about our project of promoting the importance of reading,” she said. “This year, we have been able to visit with students and read stories, then give them their own books, after members wrote each child’s name on Le Bonté bookplates in the book.”
Flournoy pointed out that March has traditionally been the date for the national reading promotion started in 1998 by the National Education Association. The Read Across America observation begins with a March 2 kickoff date, chosen in conjunction with the birthdate of Theodor Seuss Geisel. The well-known children’s author wrote and illustrated more than sixty books under the pen name of Dr. Seuss.
