It is a special treat to share a guest blog from World Read Aloud Day Partner, Blue Star Families. Janet McIntosh, Books on Bases Program Manager for Blue Star Families gives us the inside scoop on how this wonderful organization plans to celebrate WRAD on March 6.
World Read Aloud Day is fast approaching on March 6, 2013 and Blue Star Families’ Books on Bases is preparing four special events to honor this special day! Blue Star Families is a non-partisan, non-profit organization, created by real military families. We are committed to supporting one another through the unique challenges of military service and asking the larger civilian population to help as well, connecting military families regardless of rank, branch of service or physical location, and empowering military family members to create the best personal and family life possible for themselves.
Our Books on Bases program was created by Blue Star Families to positively impact the lives of military children through the power of reading. With the generosity of partners and supporters such as Disney, BAE Systems, Sleeping Bear Press, Operation Paperback, United Concordia and Random House, Blue Star Families donates books to military children, base libraries, Department of Defense schools, military-impacted public schools, and community libraries.
In support of World Read Aloud Day we have four classroom outreach events planned thanks to the work of our dedicated Blue Star Families Chapter Directors. Janine Boldrin, our Fort Campbell, Kentucky Chapter Director, will be reading to a kindergarten classroom. Tracy Adkins, our Fort Meade, Maryland Chapter Director, will be reading to a second grade classroom. Amber Robison, our Pennsylvania Chapter Director, will be reading to a first grade classroom. Our final event will actually be taking place in a classroom across the Atlantic Ocean in Stuttgart, Germany. Carmen Carlisle is our Chapter Director there and she will be reading to first grade and third students. The students at all of these events will be presented with books that they may keep.
The goal of Books on Bases is to support the literacy skills of our military children and to also build a true love of reading. Thanks to partners such as LitWorld we are achieving this goal every day! Make sure you take the time to read to a child this World Read Aloud Day!
--Janet McIntosh, Books on Bases Program Manager, Blue Star Families