March 01, 2013
Cats, Things and Loraxes
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a month!” said Cathy Packard as she pulled on her rainbow-colored wig.
Cathy, the CEO of LaunchAbility, a United Way of Metropolitan Dallas service provider, stood in the library at Edward Titche Elementary School in East Dallas. On March 1, She and more than 200 other United Way volunteers read to children at five Dallas ISD schools as part of Read Across America — a nationwide effort to share a love of reading with children.
Volunteer Arturo Hernandez convinced his sister Angela Uviña to join him. Together, they dressed as Dr. Seuss characters the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1. Arturo, who will join his sister as a student at El Centro College in August, said he volunteered because when you read to children, “the expressions on their faces are priceless.” Angela added, “When we saw the kids smile, it made us feel good.”
Adults weren’t the only volunteers. Titche student council members escorted readers to the classrooms. Christopher, a 5th grader, said, “It’s good that the volunteers can read to the little ones and help others. We read in math, we read in science — it all starts with reading.”
“The best part was the interaction with the kids,” said John Chadwick, who volunteered with several of his IT team colleagues from Bank of America. John read Hop on Pop and half of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to a pre-kindergarten class before time ran out. “I didn’t know what to expect, but they said I was the best reader they’d had. I think I was more disappointed than the kids were when it ended.
“I will definitely do it again.”
To see more of what happened at Read Across Dallas, see the photos on Facebook. To make sure that more kids in North Texas maintain a love of learning, look at our list of opportunities to become a volunteer reader, tutor or mentor — or share the opportunities with your friends.
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Volunteer Stories