Assistant District Governor Eric Jolly was on hand to induct our newest member, Ben Altemus, Executive Director of the West Shore YMCA. All Club members welcomed Ben to the Club.
Our Rotary Christmas party will be tonight, Wednesday, January 4th, at 5:30 at Luca West. 29 Rotarians and guests have committed to attending. We are all looking forward to a wonderful evening.
There will be an Art Festival meeting of the Chairpersons January 17th at 6:30 pm at the library.
Terri reported that the blanket kits for Blankets for Hope have arrived and a time will be scheduled to assemble.
Pat asked each member to send a photo of themselves so he can populate the website with member’s photos. We will also order new name badges for each member.
Our speaker today was Asst. Gov. Eric Jolly, who spoke to the club about the Kids’ Book Bank. Eric’s club sponsored a drop off box located next to the Ummerly Center in Rocky River, where used books for children can be deposited.
In 2014 Cleveland was a book desert. Volunteer activists and Kids’ Book Bank co-founders, Judy Payne and Judi Kovach, were part of a grassroots effort that placed dozens of Little Free Libraries near elementary schools in Cleveland.
By fall 2015, the Cleveland Little Free Library Movement was supporting 60 Little Free Libraries and needed an endless supply of books to keep them stocked. Judy and Judi contacted an online used bookseller who was sending more than 100,000 good-condition children’s books to recycling every month. In February 2016 they opened the Kids’ Book Bank to bring these books to Cleveland, and the Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank was born.
We have since diversified our book sourcing. We have installed 17 outdoor book collection bins throughout Greater Cleveland. With the books from these bins and monthly book drives run by companies, schools, and individuals, nearly half of our inventory comes from our community.
There Mission Statement: To foster literacy and a love of reading by distributing free books to children in need through collaboration with community partners.
They distribute over 48,000 books per month, and last year gave out 570,000 books. Since their inception in 2016, they have given out over 3.7 million books. To learn more, visit their website at kidsbookbank.org
.png)
