First Lady Jenny Sanford Celebrates Summer Reading
May 21, 2009
Students at Burton-Park Elementary Accept Mrs. Sanford’s Summer Reading Challenge
COLUMBIA, SC – May 21, 2009 – Today First Lady Jenny Sanford visited fourth grade students at Burton-Park Elementary School to read to them and encourage them to take part in the Scholastic Summer Challenge by reading four or more books during their summer vacation.
This summer I am excited to serve as a reading ambassador to support the Scholastic Summer Challenge and to help further the message to children and families about the importance of reading books over the summer, Mrs. Sanford said. Summer reading is an inexpensive and fun activity for the whole family. Books can be found for free at the library, and kids can take them anywhere-to the beach, in the car, etc.
Dr. Denise Collier, principal of Burton-Pack Elementary said, Richland County School District continues to have student achievement and literacy of children as our immediate priorities. We were pleased to have Mrs. Sanford support our initiatives through the reading to our fourth grade students. We were very excited to have had this wonderful opportunity. The Burton-Pack family is honored by Mrs. Sanford’s visit.
As part of Mrs. Sanford’s involvement, Scholastic donated 100 books to Burton-Pack Elementary as well as 100 books to each of four other schools in South Carolina-Saluda Elementary in Saluda County School District, Estill Elementary in Hampton School District 2, Walker-Gamble Elementary in Clarendon School District 3, and Luther-Vaughan Elementary in Cherokee County School District.
Scholastic, together with The National Center for Summer learning at Johns Hopkins University and Save the Children, launched The Scholastic Summer Challenge on April 30, 2009 to encourage kids to read four or more books this summer to combat the summer slide,-the common loss of skills due to being out of school over the summer. Kids can visit www.scholastic.com/summer to learn more about the Summer Reading Challenge. On the site, parents and educators can find multimedia content about kids and reading, advice from education experts, and summer book lists and articles available in English and Spanish. At the end of the summer, Scholastic will make a financial donation to Save the Children’s U.S. program on behalf of participating readers.
For more information about the Scholastic and the Scholastic Summer Challenge, please contact Amanda Hebert at Scholastic-212-343-6657 or [email protected].
For more information about Mrs. Sanford’s visit to Burton-Park Elementary, please contact Meg Milne in the Office of the First Lady-803-737-4772 or [email protected].
