For the past 5 years, the Fond du Lac Morning Rotary Club has been engaged in a cooperative venture with Fond du Lac School District’s elementary schools. This project is part of a broader initiative called “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” A book is a “Mirror” if the child can see themselves in the story, a “Window” if the child gets a feeling for what different children experience, or a “Sliding Glass Door” if the child is able to have a richer experience of the story by stepping imaginatively into it. The purpose of this is to provide classroom books which help kids view those who appear different from them through a new lens which shows how much they are actually alike. At a rate of about one school per year, FDL Morning Rotary Club has funded approximately 450 – 500 books at each of the school’s classroom libraries, and almost $20,000 in total, since the project began. Rotary purchases the books and distributes them to the schools. This year Evans and Rosenow received books. Previously, Pier, Chegwin, Parkside and Riverside Elementary Schools were provided books. In future years, the plan is to provide these books to each of the district elementary schools. The school reading specialists select the books they would like to have ordered for their school, based on their own exploration and lists that have been developed by the earlier schools. Teachers have said they love this program not only because it provides more diverse-themed books for the kids to read, but also can be used to spark meaningful classroom conversations. They have found numerous ways to engage the children – pairing children to help each other with bilingual books, having small groups read a book together, having the teacher or Rotarians read the book to the class. Literacy and basic education is a focus-area of The Rotary Foundation and Fond du Lac Morning Rotary Club. For further information on Fond du Lac Morning Rotary, visit: fdlmorningrotary.com or on Facebook.
