The Road Home Homeless Shelter has bookclub night every Monday from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. Bookclub was established to teach the children staying at the homeless shelter, how to read. I believe education is the cornerstone to make a difference in society. "When you know better, you do better." Bookclub gives an opportunity for the community to give back and strengthen the reading skills of these children. We like to reward the children for their hard work reading! A friend of mine, Kyle called me and informed me that he had a bunch of pizzas donated by Little Caezers and wanted them to go to good use. I told him about the Bookclub night at the homeless shelter and he was all in. We read with the kids for the first half and then had a pizza party! It was great watching the kids grab for slices and sharing pepperoni's! My friends wrote about their experience with Bookclub and this is what they had to say about it!
Last week I was provided to be of service at the homeless shelter in Salt Lake City. I arrived just before seven o’ clock and was welcomed by those in charge. They were very kind and helpful as they directed me to where the children would be. When the time came the children were eager to enter the room, though some were disappointed that reading would have to come first, knowing that there was pizza that had been donated by Little Caesars afterward. As the children began to pick out their favorite books I was able to help Nathan, a 5 year old boy, read each one. I soon came to realize that many of the books were created by the children at the shelter. They had stories of people, animals, and buildings that were in Salt Lake City.
It was humbling reading those books; but was uplifting in the fact that the characters in the stories were always positive and happy. At the end of the reading period we were able to serve pizza to each child. They really seemed to enjoy the pizza as they fought over who got which slice. It was a good opportunity to serve and always realize that no matter what situation we are in we can still be happy and positive as we strive to overcome challenges that we are faced with.
-Kyle Tanner
Literacy Night with the 9-12 year old residents at the Road Home Shelter was one of my favorite volunteer experiences yet! I wasn't expecting to find such a large group of kids that wanted to read! In fact, Justice, the young resident that asked me to read with him, kept asking to read more books. We switched off reading pages and Justice kept trying to sound out words that were hard for him. Justice is a unique child that wants to learn, but just needs someone to spend a little time helping him with the harder words. Literacy Night is the perfect program for kids like Justice. You could tell that all of the kids were happy to be there, and happy to have someone to spend time with them.
-Mark Rogers
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