Just a quick note...

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am putting my plan into action now. I had mentioned before that I wanted to present my Smartboard or part of my Smartboard presentation to the White River PTA. I have emailed Mr. Ashley and Jeanette Leavitt to ask if I can be on the May agenda. Mr. Ashley is the school principle, so he must be asked to be on the agenda. Jeanette is the President of the PTA, so she must be asked also. I have not heard anything back from either one yet.
I have also emailed CLiF(Children's Literacy Foundation). I took this straight from the CLiF website explaining the foundation:
ABOUT CLiF
The Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to nurture a love of reading and writing among children throughout New Hampshire and Vermont. Since 1998 CLiF has served more than 75,000 children in more than 320 communities across every region of the Twin States.
CLiF targets two groups of children from birth to age 12:
Children in rural communities where resources are limited
Children who are at high risk of growing up with low literacy skills

They actually came to the White River School recentley. Unfortunately, I was not able to go, so I was not able to talk to the man who came through the foundation. CLiF is run solely on donations. So, I emailed them to ask for any suggestions. I have not heard back from them either. If anyone wants to look into CLiF more, the url to the website is:
http://www.clifonline.org/index.cfm
I will let everyone know when I hear back from any of these people. Hopefully, it will be soon! Sorry, this turned into a not-so-short note!

News, news, news!

I have been working on the funding for the project. More specifically, I have been writing the letter that I will send to the stores, organizations, and foundations. I used my proposal of the project for the outline. Then, I cut out some things, added some things, and left some things exactly as they were written because I did not feel that they could have been written any better. Basically, I edited the whole paper to make sense to the places I am sending it.
The other progress I have made is that I have recieved some contact information of people and other news regarding my possible financial sources that I am asking. What I now have is:
- Contact information of Kay Ross, who is the President of the Rotary.
- Contact information of Trisha Kent, who is on the Chamber of Commerce.
- Another possible source, but I still have to look into it.
- The possibility of Price Chopper donating "things" for the end celebration.
I was very excited to have these things happen. I feel I am going strides in the right direction now. As you can see, I have a couple new sources. I have already edited the last post to add them to the list of possible financial support. I really have worked over vacation!

Donation sources

I have been talking with my mom, aunt, and Mrs. Haynes recently about where I am going to apply for money donations. Today, my mom helped me make a list of all of the sources. These are the ones we have come up with so far:

BJ's Wholesale Club
White River School PTA
Mascoma Bank
Members Advantage Credit Union
Walmart
Borders
Encore! Used and New Books
Staples
Shaws
Rotary Club
Lions Club
Chamber of Commerce
Price Chopper
Another possible source that is still being looked into

The places like BJ's and Staples might be willing to donate food or paper goods for the final celebration(BJ's) or free or reduced copying or supplies for activities(Staples). The other option is that they might donate some money.
Borders and Encore will, hopefully, give me a discount on the books, since I will be ordering so many and the cause.
This is the focus for my project over the next week because I will be on school vacation. I plan on getting a finalized letter to send to all of these places. The letter will be a lot like my initial proposal for the project, but I intend on tweaking it a bit.
This is keeping me very busy for the meantime!

Books

Since the next due date for my thesis paper is due on March 4th, I have begun looking into different books for my evidence/proof. Mrs. Haynes was able to find a few for me to use.
These are the books that I have been reading for my paper thus far:

Sociocultural Contexts of Language and Literacy by Bertha Perez also with Teresa L. McCarty, Lucille J. Watahomigie, Maria E. Torres-Guzman, To thi Dien, Ji-Mei Chang, Howard L. Smith, and Aurelia Davila de Silva

7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

These are the books that will be useful for narrowing down the search for books and activities to use with the kids:

Ready, Set, Motivate! How to Capture Young Readers with Visual Aids by Jennifer B. Coleman

The Kids' Multicultural Art Book: Art & Craft Experiences from Around the World by Alexandra M. Terzian

Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love by Nancy A. Chicola and Eleanor B. English

I am starting with these. I have been looking through and reading them and they seem like they will work very well. The Read Aloud Handbook has newer copies of it, so I am trying to find the most recent, now. I am always looking for more book titles, so if there are any ideas of books for me to use for reasearch or for the kids, or titles that would work for the actual program, let me know. Thanks!

Update...

Recentely, I have begun to work more seriously on the details of the project. For example, I have a basic budget worked out. Mrs. Haynes helped me make it on Excel(since I have not had much experience using it). It was really cool! We were able to make formulas, so that whenever I change a certain number, all of the figures change. For example, if the formula is:
number of book titles * number of kids = total number of books needed
So, if I change the number of kids from 30 to 28, the total number of books will change also. It is really helpful, so that all of the math will not have to be redone everytime. This is only a "rough" budget. I will continue to work with it until I feel that it is sufficient.

Part of READ logo!

This little girl on the book is part of the logo for my book project. The rest of the logo is the word READ in all capital letters. I will be getting that put up on here soon.

I feel that this girl portrays exactly how I feel. She has a look about her that says that reading is the greatest thing. She looks like she is strong, powerful due to her reading abilities. I love the look of it!