My wife and I are oft-weekenders in Chestertown. We have owned a home off Quaker Neck Rd. for five years. Other times we live in Hagerstown, MD. I check out the Spy on occasion just to keep up with what is going on in our “occasional hometown.” I immediately noticed your recent piece “The Great Divide in the Country is Reading”.
About 18 months ago I became President of the Rotary Club of Hagerstown, MD. It is comprised of ~175 members and includes many CEO’s and leaders of various organizations in Washington County. Having grown up in poverty myself and started doing some work for the Washington County Free Library I became concerned about childhood literacy for a couple of years. When I learned of some of the achievement, social, and economic problems associated with children starting school not ready to learn and to children who experience summer learning loss I became appalled and inspired.
As President of the club I was able to convince the membership to use their tremendous resources and relationships to do something it had never done before. I got them to commit to doing something BIG. The big thing was to try to change the abysmal early childhood literacy statistics in our community. My club made a four year commitment to this effort. Our goal was never to create a new organization. It was to use our leverage and resources to get each organization that does or could deal with children now to do something small. The idea is that if everyone does a little thing, it will make a huge cultural difference that can’t but help have a significant impact on the lives of our children.
Our investigations echo yours but can add more about gang activity, recidivism among released convicts, drug abuse, marital abuse, career and college readiness, etc.
I continue to chair the task force. The membership has grown from about 14, mostly similarly inspired Rotarians, to over 20 inspired people dominated by non-Rotarians. We have representatives of the school system, the library, church organizations, law, day care, headstart, community foundation, United Way, private foundations, leadership training, retired educators, and interested citizens. Our task force continues to meet at least monthly, but usually more often.
I would love to share with you our process, our activities, and the institutional progress we have made. I think we are onto something. We aren’t threatening. We are talking, nudging, challenging, and pushing organizations to think “outside the box”. Funders like the United Way, private foundations, and the Community Foundation are following with outcomes from our task force. We started by studying the issue, garnering consensus among our members, organizing a Summit on Childhood Literacy, and got the attention of our community. In part through our efforts we have been able to encourage:
+The school system found enough money to start a Summer Reading Camp for underperforming first graders. The most at risk and lowest performing first graders were invited to attend an all day camp complete with transportation, meals, at no cost, in an effort to help address this problem before children reach grade three.
+The United Way of Washington County organized a book drive in October that collected thousands of children’s books for use by the task force.
+Community Foundation is working with various other organizations in sponsoring Imagination Library.
+Support of the Greater Hagerstown Committee.
+Organized a class day on Early Childhood Literacy for Leadership Washington County. We have been invited to organize a second class day in January 2013.
+Deparment of Social Services has embarked on a program to improve literacy skills and knowledge among their clientele.
+Expanded and upgraded children’s services through the library.
+We have even been invited to design a demonstration project with the Washington County Public Schools that will target the still at-home, younger siblings of WCPS students.
This is only the start of the story. There are many other initiatives that organizations have undertaken that we believe will have significant impacts in the years ahead.
We have made presentations to most service clubs in Washington County. We were invited to address a group in West Virginia that has discovered they have the same problem in their community. We met with the District Governor of Rotary about the possibility of extending our model throughout Central Pennsylvania, Western Maryland, and Eastern/Central West Virginia. Discussions have been held with the Maryland Business Round Table for Education based in Baltimore is excited about our approach.
I am very passionate about the issue and want to spread the word. If there is anything I can do to help you. Please feel free to contact me.
David Hanlin
Chestertown
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