One by one children walked on the Vonore Elementary School cafeteria stage to receive a backpack filled with school supplies and a trophy celebrating their participation in a summer reading program by the Vonore Public Library, which included many Kahite resident volunteers.

“Children often get trophies for sports, but they seldom get a trophy for using their brain or reading,” Winnie Okumura, volunteer, said. “Some of our kids are not capable readers at all, but that’s why we ask them to just read so many minutes, not so many books. When they can go home and say, ‘I got this trophy for the books I read this summer,’ it’s just going to reinforce that it was a good thing and that they should be proud of it.”

The celebration was held July 11 and capped a month-long program that had 95-100 children ages 2-16. Attendance was a big boost from years past when the program was held at the Vonore Community Center and attendance averaged about 40 less, volunteer Nancy Christensen said.


“We’ve done the summer reading program with the library and it all comes out of the state library association, but there’s always a summer reading program and up until now, up until this year, we’ve had about 20 kids, 20 to 30 kids, and this year we moved it over to the school so that the Boys & Girls Club could also participate. So we got about 40 more kids from the Boys & Girls Club,” Christensen said.

The Boys & Girls Club of the Ocoee Region Vonore Unit in the past was unable to fully participate in the program, Okumura said.

“We’ve been working for several years on a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club,” she said. “We had an issue because the Boys & Girls Club used to be in the middle school and now they’re located here and we know these kids need reading. They had a transportation problem so they couldn’t come to us when we did this down in the Vonore Community Center, and we worked a few years and we agreed that we if we could come here was the only way they could participate.

“So I went to the principal of the school and the county board of education and said, ‘Is there some way we can get in the school?’” Okumura added. “So that’s why we came here, but the wonderful thing about it is this is also where they do the summer feeding program so we have all these kids that come here and eat every day and all of a sudden they can participate.”

Of the 35 volunteers from the Friends of the Vonore Public Library that helped each Wednesday through June, Christensen said only three were from outside Tellico Village. Christensen has participated for 10 years to promote literacy.

“Because literacy is important, especially in our area of county, and Kahite has just always been a very community support neighborhood, and this is with kids,” Christensen said. “I was a teacher, a lot of us were teachers previously, so it was a natural fit to want to work with the kids and get them into literacy. ... It’s a way to interact with the local residents who were here before us and to support the school. Mostly seeing the kids participating.”

The theme this year was “Libraries Rock.” Activities included tie-dying T-shirts provided by the Vonore Public Library board, creating rhythm instruments, painting rocks, making slime and learning reader’s theater. Each child was also encouraged to read 500 minutes during the month.

Books were given to children thanks to donations from the community and a book store in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Okumura said.

“Well, the volunteers just had fun being kids themselves and playing games,” Christensen said.

Okumura has participated at least eight years. She keeps coming back because she understands the importance of reading at an early age.

“I see the volunteers were able to come every week and get to know the kids a little bit better and get to know the parents a little bit better and they just — you just get the feeling that I’m making a difference,” Okumura said. “... If these children would develop a love for reading before they reach third grade, they will read all their lives, they’re more apt to go on to advanced education, they’re more apt to have productive jobs and I just think their life is going to be a lot richer.”

Children played games in the gymnasium after receiving awards.

“This is the fun day, but we’ve really made it a point to focus on reading-appropriate age group reading because they need to have a sense of accomplishment about that and I’ve seen a big difference this year in that,” Carol Johnson, volunteer, said.