Photos and Written by Sabrina Hansen
Sidewalk Ministries was very pleased to host River City Readers at Calloway Cove as part of our S.E.E.K (Sidewalk Excellence in Education and Knowledge) Club, a tutoring program. We welcomed Melissa Ross, Mayor Deegan’s Director of Strategic Initiatives who came with backpacks and books for our kids.
The kids also got a treat as The Covenant School of Jacksonville and National Honor Society student Ethan Caulker read them a story. Ethan is a great reader and loves to tutor the younger students. For the kids who are more visual than auditory learners, he made sure to show them the pictures too!
While just the joy of reading captured the kids' attention and participation – they loved receiving a backpack with books and a specially designed Sidewalk Ministries “Seeker” shirt! This special treat has tied in beautifully with our tutoring program as one of the main issues we tackle is literacy. We believe this visit may have furthered the children’s interest in exploring the wonders that reading can unlock. Now all that’s left is for Sidewalk to hand them the key. At the very least the backpacks and shirts have made an impact as we have seen kids wearing them still after a few weeks! We are very thankful to Melissa Ross and the Mayor’s office for partnering with us!
Let’s get DUUUVAL reading! River City Readers is a citywide literacy challenge for school-aged children that keeps track of how many minutes have been read by the children and their caregivers of Jacksonville in hopes of reaching one million minutes. For anyone interested in participating, download the app Beanstack and check out the website, Jacksonville.gov - River City Readers
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