Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” The ability to read and read well is an important skill that our club believes we should encourage in our youth. Reading leads to an increased vocabulary, improves memory, develops critical thinking skills, builds confidence and broadens horizons. Research shows that most great leaders in history were avid readers. Most importantly we encourage reading skills because reading is fun!

Our Rotary Reads project was started in 2022, as a partnership between the Tulare Sunrise Rotary and the Tulare Noon Rotary. It was dreamed up between the club presidents during their President Elect Training, as our club president is an avid reader. As a child, our club president was encouraged to read because of prizes that could be earned. As a result of these prizes our club president became an avid reader who still continues today to read on a daily basis.

Our Rotary Reads project is targeted towards third-grade students in our Tulare City School Elementary District. We start our project in September each year, by providing each student with a reading log. The students record their pages read in that log and turn it in our club each month. We total pages read and provide the students with prizes.

Our last prize giveaway occurs in January each year with our Book Fair. For the book fair we collect over a thousand books, and lay them out at the school. The students are given Book Bucks which they can redeem for a book of their choosing. Most students take home between 6-12 books. This allows the students to start their own mini library at home. The kids enjoy shopping at our book fair each year.