 Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for being here. I'm Councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine your current Mayor Pro Tem and I want to welcome you to the 11th annual Together We Can Read press conference. This is a great way to celebrate National Reading Month which is recognized in the month of March. I want to thank everyone first of all for being here and participating in this 11th annual day. This is a complete labor of love by the City of Columbia. We have been doing this it's hard to believe 11 years but when we started this it was an opportunity for us to partner with our great local school district, Richmond School District 1 and an opportunity to bring community leaders into each and every third grade classroom in Richmond 1 in order to not only share the love of reading with our students but also to interact with them and show them the positive role models that we have in this community and it has been a lot better than we could have ever hoped 11 years ago. Over the last 11 years we have directly enriched the lives of over 22,000 Richmond 1 school children and approximately 1,300 guest readers and that is the direct implication. That's not even to mention the number of students that we've touched when these kids go home and they share their book with their siblings and their family members and their other relatives so we do know that this program has touched thousands and thousands of kids and we're looking forward this year to reaching even more. During the annual reading day in March, community leaders from across the Middle East go into every single third grade classroom in Richmond 1 and this engagement sparks an interest in reading and we also leave with every third grader their own copy of the book that is selected for the year. We value our partnership with Richmond School District 1 and over the 11 years we could not have done this without their leadership, their participation and their enthusiasm. We also could not do it without community leaders like the ones that have standing with me and there are a hundred more that could not be here this afternoon but are looking forward to joining Richmond 1 tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. as they read to the students. We have nonprofit leaders. We have local business leaders. We have neighborhood association leaders. It runs the gamut and not only have we been able to introduce these leaders into our schools and get them interested in working with the schools but over the years we have learned that our readers sometimes it's the first time if they don't currently have students or children or grandchildren in the schools might be their first time in the school but it's not their last. We've had together we can read volunteers become volunteers at the school lunch buddies and mentors in Richmond 1 schools and so the impact of this program has been tremendous and so it is indeed my honor and privilege to announce this year's books. We always try and kind of keep it a secret until we get to this point. So this year this year selection and thanks to you know the USC Press University of South Carolina has also been a partner through this in the last few years they have helped us select the book and we're excited again that this year's book is by Martha Dunski illustrated by Monica Wyrick and it's called Fire and Forgiveness A Nun's Truths with General Sherman. And so this book we always want to select a book that has a South Carolina sometimes a Columbia focus so that the kids not only are getting to expand their minds through reading but they also get to learn something about the community and city that they live in. And so this book is no different. This book Fire and Forgiveness A Nun's Truths with General Sherman is about is based on first hand personal accounts of the burning of Columbia. It teaches about making peace with a spiteful classmate. It uses a spiteful classmate and making peace with the spiteful classmate as an opportunity to encourage and teach children about peace about loving their neighbors and about forgiveness and we think so important in this day and age where there's so much negativity there's so much going on and our kids are learning and seeing what goes on when people are spiteful and when they're not forgiving and so we're going to use this look not only as an opportunity to encourage their love of reading but also to spur a conversation about love and forgiveness and working with one's neighbor. So again tomorrow Tuesday March twenty six our reading day every single student will get read this book and they will get their own copy of the book to take home and add to their home libraries. So we are excited about this book. We're excited about reading day and most importantly we're excited about this continuing partnership with Richland One. So at this time I would like to introduce my other half the chairman of Richland One School Board Mr. Jamie Devine to speak on behalf of the school district. Mr. Devine. Thank you Councilwoman Devine. At this time I just want to say thank you all so much for coming out. This is the eleventh year of together we can read and again on behalf of my colleagues Ms. King and Ms. Anderson behind me and my other board members as well we say thank you to the City of Columbia for this partnership for this great initiative put on by our own Councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine and again I want to thank the one hundred plus readers that are here today to be with us on tomorrow to read to our third graders we know it's so important that the community comes out and to support us each and every time there's an opportunity that we open our school doors and so again we say thank you to them and just want to say 10 things real quick while reading it's so important just talking to some of our principals and some of our admin team they gave me a list of things to talk about and so I said well give me some things that we can tell the public why reading is so important so those 10 things that that they gave to me was first is is imagination imagination is so important and that reading helps that focus and concentration is another thing that reading is important reading helps improve your memory reading helps with communication reading helps with entertainment you get to entertain yourself on reading a variety of things and reading helps with language development and then lastly reading helps make you smarter it doesn't matter what you read as long as you read something every day and we encourage our parents community leaders our guardians of our young people to read each and every day to our young people because if they see us read they will read and reading is fundamental to any and everything that we do so again thank you on behalf of the risk-wander board of school commissioners we thank the city of columbia mayor benjamin and particularly our council woman to make us divine for this initiative and at this time we'll introduce our superintendent dr craig witherspoon for some words as well thank you thank you chairman divine and mayor pro tem divine this is a divine moment absolutely uh i would just uh like to again say thank you certainly to uh the city for this uh partnership that has been going on for 11 years and uh while commissioner divine talked about those 10 things around reading i would like to add one more thing and that's about connections as we've seen we're connecting our community to schools we're collecting we're connecting what has happened uh either in the city of columbia or in south carolina with this reading initiative so we're bringing all of those pieces together through words through books to to engage our students to enhance their learning and to make our community a better place and over these 11 years we've heard about the number of students that have been impacted the community that is impacted and we're seeing that change we're seeing those conversations those discussions those things that help our young people grow and become adults in our community to continue to move us forward so this is another year of us to read to our students to celebrate this activity these events that we have and to make our community a better place so great activity uh we look forward to being in each and every one of our schools tomorrow and across third grade and if you want to see a treat see the smiles of our young people when they not only hear the story and hear our adults read to them but when they get their own copy and this is my book that they can add to their libraries and they can enhance their learning so a great opportunity and we're looking forward to this year as well thank you thank you mr divine and uh superintendent uh with a spoon and so at this point um i would like to ask um councilman um howard devolve another at-large council person to join me for a special presentation all right just making sure no one else has come in i know we've got every council member we'll be reading tomorrow not everyone was able but um you come on the side on behalf of the mayor and the members of columbia city council um it is under our indeed pleasure uh to present this proclamation which i'm going to ask mr devolve to present you don't have to read it off because i know it's small okay the mayor always complains about the frank do you want me to read it can you yeah yes i'll read it okay uh whereas together we can read is a joint partnership between the city of columbia and richland county school district one to provide guest readers for every third grade classroom in the district and whereas march of 26 2019 is the 11th annual together we can read initiative which has impacted more than 22,000 students through the volunteerism and energy of more than 1200 guest readers and whereas the month of march is set aside as national reading month to celebrate the love of books among the children and whereas third grade is a transitional year for students in obtaining critical reading skills for future success in education and life and whereas the books selected for each reading day make tribute pay tribute to south carolina authors culture history and landmarks and whereas this year's book fire and forgiveness by martha dunski who loves delving into history and finding inspirational true stories and illustrated by her sister monica wirick who is the illustrator of crabbing dreaming with animals the hl-hundry submarine and art smart science detective all published by the university of south carolina press now therefore ist benjamin mayor of the city of columbia along with my fellow council members of city council will do hereby proclaim that this city honors and recognizes the efforts of richland county school district one and the city of columbia on tuesday march the 26 2019 is together we can read today signed by the mayor and the captain we will be presenting this to our our richland one representative thank you thank you and so that is it so if anybody has any questions we're happy to read um answer them but other than that every reader will get their books this afternoon and their assignments and then tomorrow morning at nine a.m we will have readers in every single third grade classroom in richland school district one