 It's been an exciting 10 years. The thing about it is when we first came up with the idea, it was really just an opportunity to do a couple things. Number one, to introduce or support children's love of reading. Number two, it was to get community volunteers into our school district. And then three, we also wanted to support South Carolina either by choosing books that are by South Carolina authors or books that are about South Carolina, sometimes Columbia specifically. So it was really a threefold mission and it's been exciting over the last 10 years to see how it's evolved and how the students and the volunteers look forward to it every single year. If we can give that mastery and that love of reading to children, we know that everything comes back to children. Our children are not just our future, they're our present. I mean it's ever rapidly changing world, technological advancements. You have to learn to read and then obviously you read to learn and together we can work and make the city of our children deserve. To see the bright eyes light up and be able to share with them rich parts of our history through the books that we read, it's an amazing contribution. Our students love to read and I think the relationship that is developed between our readers and our students at that elementary level, it not only creates a bond for them but it also creates a love for learning. I think what it does is it sends a message that our students realize that they're not in this alone. The children are inspired that they can really go anywhere they want to and it starts with opening a book and they can become lifelong learners and that by reading it will help open as many doors as they want. By not reading those doors stay closed but reading is fundamental to a person's ability to be successful in life. I'm always impressed to observe the degree of comprehension of the children. They are very smart. They hold your attention. You don't hold their attention. It allows them also to demonstrate their reading skills, their comprehension skills, their ability to be creative about subject matters and I'm always impressed with that. Even more important than reading was just sharing with them who I am, where I work, where I'm from and when I typically share with them that I'm from this community and the community that they're from, they tend to be inspired by that. The reality is that when you're trying to raise good, solid, well-rounded citizens, it's not just the responsibility of the schools. It's civic leaders, it's neighborhood leaders, it's parents, it's church leaders. We're in this together and bringing community leaders into the school to recognize that we have to build a complete, totally supportive environment in which our children can grow up to the God-given potential that's underscored by programs like this. It's not just the four corners of the schools and the great professionals inside them. All of us have that responsibility and together we can read helps underscore that every year. The impact that reading in the schools have had on the community leaders I think has far exceeded what my expectations were because we've got community leaders who have gotten their companies involved in adopting a school and volunteering, being lunch buddies. We've had community leaders who have donated not only of their time but money and resources to help the schools what they've gone in and see the great things. I don't know if we can do anything any more important than inspiring young people on a lifelong journey of learning and gaining wisdom. And I don't know if anything else that we can do is any more important than getting people who don't spend time in schools to come in and spend 30 minutes or an hour reading and talking to children. It's a great opportunity to see what all the wonderful things that the educators and the parents in the community at large do with and for children. It's also important for them to see how gifted and how creative and how fun it how precious our children are because they are our future. This is one of the most rewarding experiences that they can ever be a part of. Our kids, our children are precious. And that one-on-one time with them means so much to them but for you as the reader, it's so fulfilling to have that one-on-one time with our students. Partnering with the City of Columbia, with the local school district is just a good thing to do. We know that organizations that partner tend to do better and whatever their mission and their vision and their goals are. And when the two entities that are so important to the viability of the City of Columbia partner, it's a really good thing. And especially when it's about children and particularly children reading. I've always been to the most powerful words in the English language are thank you. I want to say thank you to the hundreds of volunteers when they've committed their time. There are probably thousands of volunteers committed their time over the last decade to make sure our children understand the power of reading and the importance of reading and the importance of community. The future is bright. Together we can read. I can see it being just as impactful and just as successful as it's been for the past 10 years. Just looking back over the 10 years, seeing how many opportunities we've been able to provide for our students within District 1 has been extraordinary. And then again to hear from some of them, you know, some of the first students that we had are now in college. And they remember the people who came to their school and came and read. So that to me is it shows a lasting legacy of this program. And so that's humbling because it's just started off as an idea. When we took a trip to look at another school district and what they were doing there and and to see that idea blossom into something like this is just really humbling.