Wheeling Rotary donates books, reads to Whitman students

Members of the Rotary Club of Wheeling joined kindergarten and first grade students at Whitman Elementary School on Friday to celebrate reading. The 20 Rotarians read to students and then presented each student with a book to take home.

"We were honored to have the Rotarians in our classrooms as guest readers, and appreciate their generous donation benefitting our students and school community," said Patty Puetz, Principal of Whitman Elementary School.

All kindergarten and first grade students received a gifted book, and students in Whitman's dual language program were able to select a book in English or Spanish.

In addition to the gifted books, Rotary also donated classroom sets of guided reading books. The guided sets allow teachers to support students at a variety of levels of reading mastery, and will benefit students this year and for years to come.

"With the gift of these books Wheeling Rotary hopes to spark a love of reading among these children," said Tamiye Meehan, Rotary member and coordinator of the book donation. "Watching the children and the Rotarians engage in discussing the books as they were read; seeing a girl who had been in my group of youngsters pick the book we had read as her choice of a book to keep; and talking with this lively class brought home to me, as it did to the other Rotarians, the magic still contained in a book."