More than 30 millions adults in the United States cannot read or write above a third grade level. Children whose parents have low literacy levels have a 72% chance of being at the lowest reading levels themselves, and 75% of state prison inmates can be classified as low literate. With the poverty level in Tempe sitting at 26% there is a need to place dictionaries in the hands of children at that critical point where many children fall off.
Tempe South is committed to providing each child in the Tempe School District with a dictionary of their own. The second semester of 3rd grade is when dictionaries are introduced to children in the Tempe School District and with funding cuts at the state and local levels, the need for our support with the dictionary project is critical. Our volunteers and Rotarians love distributing the dictionaries to 3rd graders across the city.
Tempe School Districts will provide us the number of students by the end of September, dictionaries will be ordered by the middle of October. They will be labeled with the Rotary logo and distributed to the students by the beginning of January.
The budget for this project is $3,500, for which Tempe South will contribute $2,000. Tempe South is requesting a District Contribution of $1,500.
|