Temple University will host the National Education Association project Read Across America on March 3.
The event will take place from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. in rooms 301 and 302 of the Student Center.
“This is a program mostly for kids,” said Katrina Simons, the Marketing and Planning Chairperson of 1940’s Residential Organization of Community Service.
Simons says that the event will involve children between the ages of three and nine.
The kids will take part in reading exercises and art activities.
The Read Across America program is the biggest one-day reading festival in the United States.
The program is in its sixth year, and is a reading motivation and awareness program that focuses on children from various communities all across the country.
NEA created Read Across America on the premise that today’s generation of found watching television more attractive than reading. To change this, the NEA community began the planning an entire day dedicated to reading.
They decided that the program would have more appeal if it were to fall on the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.
Hence, Read Across America has been held on March 2 every year since 1997.
According to www.nea.org/readacross, since Dr. Seuss’s birthday falls on a Sunday, “we decided to make it easy for everyone to celebrate by designating Monday, March 3 as this year’s official NEA’s Read Across America Day”.
This is the first year that Temple will be participating in the event.
In preparation, Temple will be conducting a book drive that will end on Feb. 28.
Book donations can be dropped off at room A6 in the Student Center.
The books will be donated to children who participate in the program or to local libraries.
“It is nice that Temple is trying to reach into the community,” said Andrea Patterson, a biology major.
“It is a good well-needed program because not enough kids read anyhow.”
Jonathan Vann can be reached at jvann@temple.edu.
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