First grade students in Leon County will have a special treat beginning on Monday, April 14th and culminating on Friday, April 18th for the highly anticipated United Way of the Big Bend annual event called Read UNITED Week. Students will be visited by enthusiastic volunteers who are excited to share their love of reading with students in our community.
For fifteen years, United Way of the Big Bend has hosted Read UNITED Week: this week-long event provides volunteers with the opportunity to encourage a love of reading with hundreds of first graders in our schools including Title I schools in our Big Bend region. These volunteers not only read with the students but leave the gift of new books for their classroom libraries.
UWBB started READ UNITED in 2010 to encourage a love of reading in children and to provide resources to get them started on their own literacy journey. Reading can open new worlds and enrich the lives of the children in our community. READ UNITED promotes the spirit and value of volunteerism and demonstrates what people working together for the good of the community can accomplish. An initiative of WOMEN UNITED, it enlists members and community volunteers to read classic tales and new stories in pre-kindergarten through first grade classrooms across the Big Bend area. Every class that participates receives brand new, FREE books to add to their class library. Since the beginning of the program that’s Over 40,000 books!