Open a Book, Show Them the World

Service Initiative - Literacy: Open a Book, Show Them the World

Literacy is a huge problem in today's world. According to the National Center for Family Literacy:

• By age four, children who live in poor families will have heard 32 million fewer words than children living in professional families.
• One in five, or 20%, of America's children five years old and under live in poverty.
• Some 30 million adults in the United States have extremely limited literacy skills. If one teacher could teach 100 adults to read, we would need 300,000 adult education teachers to meet this need.

As Circle K'ers we are committed to help rectify this problem. We have a well established service initiative that takes place from December 1st through March 31st and a recent partnership with Better World Books. It has been proven that by exposing children to literacy at a young age are rated higher by their teachers than a randomly selected comparison group in terms of overall academic performance, motivation to learn, attendance, and likelihood of future success. So what can you and your clubs do to help?

Circle K clubs can help kids enhance their imagination and stay in school by reading with them. You can also:

• Co-sponsor a Builders or K-Kids club
• Co-sponsor an Aktion Club
• Create a library for children at a local shelter for the homeless or community center
• Implement the College Bound program in a third- to sixth-grade class to encourage students to stay in school
• Implement the Terrific Kids program at your local elementary school
• Create flash cards for children
• Implement the BUGS program at your local elementary school
• Collect books and host a book drive
• Read to students
• Mentor students
• Tutor students
• Establish book drives with Better World Books