By Amanda Marshall and Karen Gavis
About 250 students from the Arlington Independent School District will join volunteers for the SE Campus Reading Festival March 24.Score a Goal in the Classroom, which provides books and selects children for the event, has teamed with SE Campus, which provides volunteers.
Jo Klemm, SE library services director, said when it’s time to prepare for this annual event, she doesn’t lack in volunteers, including students, faculty and staff.
“I’m expecting about 175 volunteers,” she said. “We sit on the floor, we read to the kids and the kids read to us. Basically, it is a pep rally for reading.”
Klemm said student organizations erect tents before the festival that children can sit under throughout the festival. This will be SE’s third year to participate in the Read In.
Visitors can expect to encounter TCC’s mascot, Toro the bull. A reading poster showing Toro holding a book will be given to children, and two books are usually provided for them to take home as well.
Many children have never visited a college campus.
“And the little kids think it is really cool to be with the college kids,” Klemm said.
The festival will be held 9-11:30 a.m. in the SE Campus library.
This year’s theme is Open a Door to History. Klemm said the idea was inspired when brainstorming for ways to decorate the event tents with the desire to outdo last year’s theme of fairy tales.
Some of the volunteers will wear costumes, she said.
The books for the festival are selected by the Score A Goal in the Classroom organization, who created the program for local students to participate in. The local students can earn prizes such as entertainment tickets after they have reached a set educational goal.
Executive director of Score a Goal in the Classroom Ernie Horn said the organization collaborates with public, private and church schools in North Texas. He said the events help children fall in love with reading.
“It is based upon the need for children to be able to come to a college and be inspired and develop relationships with students and college employees,” he said.
Klemm said those wanting to volunteer but who can’t make it the morning of the festival can help the week before with preparation for the event.
Students who have volunteered in the past said that it was fun and the children were very enthusiastic.
“My favorite part was after the children read, they seemed to have a sort of proud feeling come over them,” one SE volunteer said.
For more information or to volunteer, call 817-515-3388 or visit the SE library.
