Youth Led Program Sends a Book to Children Each Month

SUSSEX • A new program in the region organized by a group of teen leaders will see children ages zero to five get a new book each and every month for free.

The Interact Club is a youth club sponsored by the Sussex Rotary Club for teens 14 to 16. This is the first time this club has existed in Sussex and for their first mission they have opted to work on boosting literacy by growing home libraries.

“Our goal is to provide books to every child and encourage literacy before they get to kindergarten to give them the best start they can get,” said Sussex Regional High School student Brianna Dunfield. “A lot of children live in homes where they may not have books. Getting a book, or anything in the mail every month, will give each child that feeling of having something of their very own.”

The group has partnered up with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The program promotes literacy and fosters a love of reading at an early age, by sending a free book every single month straight to the child’s door until they are ready to start school.

Books have been pre selected to be age appropriate for each child receiving them.

Rotary Club member Lisa Brown is acting as liaison for the club. As the owner of a local daycare, she said finding a way to assist children at a very young age was a no-brainer to her.

“When we looked around at all the literacy programs in the area, we found that there was lots of stuff for older kids and teens, but virtually nothing for children under five,” she said.“And those first years is when it counts. If they don’t learn to love books when they are small, they won’t when they get older.”

According to this year’s literacy results in the province, Anglophone School District-South’s number of students reading at the appropriate grade level fell well below the province’s 90 per cent target. Overall, 75.9 per cent of Grade 2 students in Anglophone School District-South met the appropriate reading level for 2016, down from 79.1 per cent in 2015 and 81.4 per cent in 2014.

Dunfield said there is hope that this program can play some small role in turning those numbers around.

“We are helping these children for school and for the future. And they are the future, so its about making our whole community better,” said Dun-field.

The Rotary Club itself will be sponsoring the first 25 children to sign up for the program. The Interact Club will be coming up with fundraising activities and pursuing local businesses to become sponsors.

It will cost $215 to provide every one child with a set of books up until their fifth birthday. In the alternative, Brown said some people are opting to give a donation of $42.60 which will be a year’s worth of books for one child.

The Interact Club plans to have its charter meeting Jan. 16, and is still looking for members to join and be a part of the charter group.

On March 17, they will be bagging groceries to raise money for the library program and on April 22, they will host a spring carnival at Lisa’s Playhouse.

The club will also take part in the Rotary Club’s major auction and dinner fundraiser May 4.

Brown said it is a huge benefit to the Rotary to have young people affiliated with it.

“They are bringing new life and new ideas to our club,” Brown said. “It will be great to watch them grow and get to know them and one day they wil hopefully decide to join the Rotary Club wherever they are.”

For more info on how to join the Interact Club, teens can contact Brown at 506-433-2273, Dunfield at 506-434-3769, or Sophia Sharp at 506-434-1936.

To sign a child up for the Imagination Library, contact Kristin Armstrong at 506-512-2409 or through email at imagination_library@outlook.com. The children must live in the Sussex area and the number of children chosen will be taken on a first come first serve basis based on how much funding can be acquired in this first year.