Shreveport Police Dept.
Date: April 17, 2007
Phone: 318/673-6932 Fax: 318/673-6933
Contact: Kacee Hargrave, Public Information Officer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Quota of Shreveport, Willis-Knighton, Caddo Schools and SPD launch 2007 Project Read
At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, four groups will be teaming up to sort more than 10,000 new books that have just arrived for this year’s Project Read.
Interim Chief of Police Mike VanSant and Caddo Parish Schools Superintendent Ollie Tyler will join members of the Quota Club of Shreveport and Willis-Knighton Health System to sort the books that have just arrived at the school’s warehouse, located at 5800 W. 70th Street.
These books were donated by First Book National Book Bank, with delivery made possible by a monetary donation from Willis-Knighton Health System.
On Wednesday, volunteers will be stamping the books with a special message and sorting them, so that they can be distributed to school children via the Caddo Parish School System and Shreveport Police.
Project Read started several years ago by the Shreveport Police Department and involved police officers reading to students at Lakeshore Elementary School. Local physician Dr. Charles Sale got involved and managed to get thousands of books donated to give to children. Thanks to Dr. Sale’s initiative, the program grew to include Quota Club and Caddo Parish Schools with a mission to get new books into the hands of children in underserved areas of the city and those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
First Book is a non-profit organization located in Washington D.C. It chose Shreveport’s application primarily to help those students dislocated by the hurricanes.
The Shreveport area received an influx of approximately 30,000 people who moved here from areas in South Louisiana following the storms. According to Dr. Jean Ducote, director of Caddo Parish School libraries, this added many students to the school system and reduced the number of available books in the libraries of the Title 1 schools.
Those facilities will receive the bulk of the books with the remainder going to Project Read, and distributed by police officers to children in deserving neighborhoods.
Another 2,000 books are slated to arrive during the week, bringing the total number of books so received so far this year to 12,556.
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View all SPD press releases at www.ci.shreveport.la.us/dept/police/spdnews
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