30 Jun 2022 Kiwanis’ partnership with Head Start encourages literacy
By Stefanie Brazile
This spring, an annual partnership successfully placed 50 new, personalized bookcases with preschoolers enrolled in Head Start. The Kiwanis Club of Conway has hosted the Bookcase Project for 18 years in collaboration with the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas, Inc. (CAPCA).
At the annual event, the children receive a wooden bookcase built by Kiwanians and a starter set of one dozen books and a Bible. One girl was so excited that she opened a book and began turning the pages before her bookcase could be loaded into the vehicle.
Kyal Pruitt and Kameron King recall their daughter’s enthusiasm at the event. “Mara [Pruitt-King] was really excited,” Pruitt said. “We read books every night, and we’re glad to update her books because that can get really expensive. We set up the whole bookshelf when we got home.”
Each bookcase has a brass plate on the front with the child’s name on it. They are also gifted a stuffed animal “Reading Buddy,” and a personalized bookmark. The children are encouraged to read to their new buddy.
“The bookshelf is well-made and beautiful,” King said. “And it’s personalized. Mara immediately recognized her name. She has a keen eye for finding things and noticing emotions in characters in books. She has a fantastic memory and has figured out certain books we read often, and she will finish sentences.”
“If we constantly expose Mara to words and make reading important and fun, then we hope she’ll like to do it when she’s older,” her mother said. The Bookcase Project was started in 2005 by author and syndicated columnist Jim Davidson of Conway. At that time, he was not aware of a similar project in the U.S. He started the bookcase effort because he saw a need to improve literacy development in young children as a means to create a better life for people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Three years ago, Davidson resigned as director, and he passed the torch to fellow Kiwanian Richard Plotkin. Six members of the service club provide functional oversight to raise the money to purchase lumber and supplies to build the bookcases. Davidson remains involved and continues to promote literacy and the importance of good character.
Last year, Plotkin received a note from one mother, Mireya Hurtado, who wrote: “Thank you ‘muchas gracias’ to you and your team for this amazing project [and the] beautiful bookcase my son received last year! I really appreciate it!”
In addition to the Kiwanis Club, Conway Trophy & Awards donates the personalized brass nameplates, Crystal Spellman purchases the reading buddies, Patsy Desaulniers crafts bookmarks, and the books come from the Faulkner County Library and the Life 10 Sunday School class at First Baptist Church. Members of the Circle K International at the University of Central Arkansas helped assemble the bookcases. It is a collegiate branch of the Kiwanis International family.
Included in the bag of books is a note from Plotkin. One section reads: “Our collective hope is that you will fill your child’s bookcase over time with books given as gifts for his or her birthday and for Christmas. As you do this, always remember that reading — which develops critical thinking and communication skills — is a gateway to their future.
More than 43 million adults in the U.S. cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third-grade level, according to a fact sheet from proliteracy.org. The organization states that “bringing all adults to a sixth-grade reading level equivalent would generate an additional $2.2 trillion in annual income for the country.”
At this time, the Bookcase Project has been adopted in several other communities across Arkansas and a few surrounding states. Davidson’s goal is to see the program functioning in every state.
