 Okay, good afternoon everyone and welcome to our Together We Can Read press conference in celebration of our 10th year of Together We Can Read. I'm Councilwoman Tamika Isaac-Divine and I want to thank you guys so much for being here today and most importantly for being celebrity readers for us on Wednesday in every single third grade in Richland One. This is completely a labor of love for us. We love this program and I cannot believe it's been 10 years already but and the children that we have touched over the last few years have just been extraordinary and it's thanks to you your support you don't know how much it means to the children when you go into their their schools and you read to them and you leave them a book it's such an awesome experience. I wanted to just tell you a little bit about the objectives of this initiative. Like I said we've been doing this for 10 10 years and in the 10 years that we've been doing this program more than 20,000 Richland School District One third grade students have gone gone through this program and we've had more than a thousand volunteers. The initiative has three main objectives. One to build a strong community and to enlighten the lives of our youth. Two to introduce and support the importance of reading to children and encouraging children to have a passion for reading and three to allow community volunteers like you our guest readers a front row seat to witness the innovations and instruction taking place in Richland School District One. As a personal note earlier today several of us were able to attend a press conference by Casey Alley announcing the new mission of Heroes in Blue which is now protect and connect or serve and connect but one of the things that caught me is a law enforcement officer who was there and listening to one of the speakers who gave the fact that I know I thought that most of us knew but the fact that the plans for prison populations are are the plans for how much you expand prisons are based on third grade reading skills and this was a law enforcement officer who had had never heard that fact before and so I share that with you because it really dawned on me that there are others who may have never heard that before but also to tie in while we selected third grade 10 years ago a group of us from Richland County Council City of Columbia community leaders as well as Richland School District One took a trip and on the way back from that trip I was talking to the then superintendent Percy Matt and one of the things that he talked about was we would just love to get people in our schools reading to our kids letting them understand how important reading is because you have no idea how that one person going into a school reading to somebody and telling them about what they do and exciting them about the love of reading how that transcends beyond that day and so this may be just one hour of your time one morning but it means the world to these kids and we can't thank you enough I it is my pleasure well we could not do this partnership at all without Richland School District One so it is indeed my pleasure to introduce to you guys for a few brief remarks the superintendent of Richland School District One Dr. Craig Weatherspoon Good afternoon certainly a pleasure to be here and I want to say thank you certainly to City Councilwoman Devine for 10 years of partnership of Together We Can Read certainly a lot of great things as you know happens just when people are in a lot of different situations and you say hey here's a great idea let's do it so certainly this is grown and blossomed to something that that she looks forward to but I'll tell you all of Richland One looks forward to not just our elementary schools but whenever we can get you all into our schools to see the great things that are going on to see our students to see the excitement that they show when you do put a book in their hand and to make that even more special when you guys sit down too and let them know they're interested you're interested in them and that learning and that engagement takes place because it's not only about the book which it is but it's also if you how many of you have read before this is not your first time you've done this before so you also know that there's some conversation and there's some discussion that goes on after you read the book and sometimes that can be just as important and just as engaging so thank you for that to our guest readers we thank you again taking time out of your busy schedules to come in and read and that has a lot of purposes as well certainly gives it an opportunity to interact with our young people but we want you to get in and see some of the great students that we have and the great things that happen in our buildings as well so I hope that it's not just the one time that you you come in together we can read and we'll do that on on on Wednesday but know that that invitation to come in and engage and work with our students and our principals and and all of our folks in Richmond one that invitation remains open to you so please continue to do that and as we do this partnership and we do a lot of things with the city but this is probably one of the most important ones because it does impact the future it impacts our young people not only on this day but they get a book they can build their libraries and things to that nature so that they know that reading and books and all of those things are important as we move forward so again thank you Commissioner Devine for City Councilwoman Devine for that's Commissioner Devine for for your vision and initiative and thank you all as readers and we have a terrific book this year as as well and this is a great day and a great opportunity that we in Richmond one always look forward to so thank you so very much thank you and if we would ask Commissioner Devine to join us up here I wanted to just share this proclamation with Richmond one whereas together we can read is a joint partnership between the City of Columbia and Richmond County School District one to provide guest readers for every third grade classroom in the district and whereas March 21st 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the Together We Can Read initiative which has impacted more than 20,000 students throughout about through the volunteerism and energy of more than 1,000 guest readers and whereas the month of March is set aside as National Reading Month to celebrate the love of books among children and whereas third grade is a transitional year for students and attaining critical reading skills for future success in education and in life and whereas the books selected for each reading day pay tribute to South Carolina authors culture history and landmarks and whereas this year's book The Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls by Louise Maryweather whose parents were born in South Carolina and illustrated by Jonathan Green a South Carolinian artist who has gained acclaimed as one of the most important contemporary artists in the southern experience now therefore on behalf of my Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin along with all the members of Columbia City Council we do hereby proclaim that this city honors and recognizes the efforts of Richmond County School District one and the City of Columbia on Wednesday March 21st as together we can read day. I invite Commissioner DeVine to bring a Vice Chair of Richmond One School Board of Commissioners and my other half and I invite him to bring some remarks. Thank you ma'am. Good afternoon everyone. We have a tagline on wrist and one that says wrist and one strong and if you know anything about numerology the number 10 means strong so we're here celebrating the 10th anniversary of together we can read I remember going to on that trip with with my wife and just been elected to the school board when that happened and here we are again 10 years later to celebrate this great partnership with the city which we greatly greatly appreciate again on behalf of the Board of School Commissioners we thank each of you for coming we thank each of you for participating we thank you for the readers we thank you for staff and helping to put this together and again we thank our councilwoman who has done this for 10 straight years and we know sometimes you don't always get things passed and see the council but that's okay we appreciate this effort uh each and every day and we appreciate this community being a learning and literate community and so again we say thank you for all that you do. So I mentioned when I read the proclamation that this year we've selected the Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls as our featured book the author Louise Maryweather tells the story of how Robert Smalls steals a Confederate gunboat and escapes out of the Charleston Harbor with family members and former slaves. The illustrations in this edition are created by the renowned artist Jonathan Green. Jonathan recorded this message during a recent interview about the book his illustrations and the importance of reading and so now if you would join me in watching this video message from Jonathan Green. I'm gonna first be really surprised about the history and the culture of this book and that this person uh Mr. Robert Smalls himself not only was he an enslaved person but he got his freedom and he did more than just getting his freedom he became a state legislator he himself was illiterate and he learned to read and write and he produced a beautiful family and he also took care of the elderly people whom were his owners in Beaver South Carolina uh she they lived in that house after he bought that home until they died so it's it's a great story from the perspective of from one extreme of being enslaved to the other extreme of taking care of the very people that are slaves if that's not loved I don't know what is. I wanted to have some form of abstraction in terms of the landscape and the people in the landscape so I used the I worked on paper and I used acrylic paint to construct the imagery the acrylic paint worked very well because it dries much faster and the colors are quite brilliant in this in this acrylic paint that I've used and I was able to have fun I wanted to feel like I was a child again just exploring Robert Smalls and the possibilities of you know having to be a part of the adventure of painting about someone and also having the freedom as he acquired his freedom I acquired my freedom and putting the subject matters in this book more into an African fashion conscious sense the most informative way to help children read is through visual imagery and we can use the bible for example uh in the day until very recently all of the bibles had visual images in them and that's because 90 of the populace of people reading the bible could not read they were illiterate so I wanted the viewers of this book children their parents their grandparents look at and see the images and from the images then I hope that they would enjoy the reading material of the book Jonathan wanted to take that for us since he couldn't be here but we thank him for his participation so now let's get down to the work so Wednesday is our reading day during our reading day first of all I have to say again I cannot thank you guys enough and for those of you who come in I just want to say how much we appreciate your participation on reading day we encourage you to take pictures with your class um and if you are on social media post them to social media if you're not on social media if you would share them uh with our staff and then they will post them as well we also um if you are social media savvy and do hashtags we are utilizing the hashtags together we can read hashtag twcr times 10 and hashtag 10 years twcr so you can use those hashtags when you're posting your pictures also for our guest readers we want to ask you to pick up your books if you are a to l your book is over here and then the m to z your book is over there uh you could pick up your books um and then once you pick up your books look through it in your books there are there is a reader guide it will give you some tips on how to engage with your students um do not um be surprised if your students are so excited that they ask you questions about the book and ask you um to reread different passages that's all part of the joy of this the other thing that I want to say before we close is that um this year's book was selected um as been mentioned before we always try and select a book that has a South Carolina focus and this year's book um means a lot because it is about the life of Robert Smalls which a lot of South Carolinians and especially children don't know a whole lot about Mr. Smalls so we hope that this book by reading this book will also teach you a little bit about uh Robert Smalls and the history um and be something that you can share with the young people in your lives as well so with that said I would like to invite you guys to join us for a reception downstairs after you pick up your book but again thank you from the bottom of our hearts here at the city and we look forward to celebrating with you on Wednesday just just before we leave um I was given a task to show appreciation and to show uh some thanks to the person who put this together 10 years ago of course I have the honor of doing it um thanks to Cheryl Harris who's our board chair who cannot be here today so in turn I fall in as vice chair of the board to give thanks and recognition to our leader our founder of the Together We Can initiative and we have a plaque honoring her celebrating 10 years of Together We Can Read um thank you for 10 years of leadership presented to our councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine and I didn't say this is up here just for you all to know these are uh all the books that we've read over the 10 years and so up there we've had a question mark where Robert Smalls is and now it is up there so these are all 10 10 books which like I said if you haven't read before and got your copies of the books then feel free to research these and get these because these are all fabulous books last thing I didn't say is when you read you could also leave a copy every single every single school will get their own copy of the book correct Kisa so they will get their own copy so you are welcome to keep your copy of the book but if you'd like to leave it with the school by all means please feel free to do so but again thank you and join us downstairs for the celebration