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Last Updated: Jul 2nd, 2008 - 21:15:22 |
(ARA) – Fall vacations are just around the corner, and if you'll be staying at a hotel when you travel, what will you do to keep busy? Instead of watching movies and playing video games at night in your hotel room, why not read a book and encourage the kids to do the same.
Why is it so important to keep the kids reading? Because kids who continue to read outside of regular school assignments often elevate their reading skills. Most people learn to read some time between kindergarten and the second grade, but for 15 percent of the population -- or 44 million Americans -- it’s a skill that has yet to be learned.
“People who can't read have difficulty finding jobs, their annual health care costs are four times higher, and they are more likely to end up in prison; but teach them to read, and their lives turn around,” says Rochelle Cassella, director of corporate communications for ProLiteracy Worldwide, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the mission of helping adults and their families acquire the literacy practices and skills they need to function more effectively in their daily lives. “Once they can read, people gain the ability to read bus schedules, browse the classified ads and fill out job applications, things that used to be off limits for them."
Inspired by the work being done by ProLiteracy, and realizing how prominent reading is among its guests, Country Inns & Suites By Carlson implemented ”Book It And Return” to raise money for the organization. The chain established lending libraries in its more than 350 hotels in the United States and Canada, offering guests the opportunity to borrow books with an incentive to return them on their next visit to any Country Inns & Suites hotel. For every book returned, the hotel chain makes a $5.00 donation to ProLiteracy Worldwide.
“The ‘return’ part of the program is on the honor system, and thanks to the incentive, we get most of them back,” says Nancy Johnson, executive vice president of Country Inns & Suites By Carlson.
Since the launch of “Book It And Return” in 2001, $60,000 has been raised to help solve the problem of low level literacy. The money goes towards providing technical assistance to local programs that provide one-on-one and group instruction in literacy skills to adult learners.
“We’ve received countless letters from guests who want to express their pleasure with the program,” says Johnson. “A school teacher from Davenport, Iowa, wrote ‘As a teacher of 32 years experience, this is one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard of and I’m going to share it with my faculty.’ We’ve also heard from our hotel managers that people stop in from time to time, even if they don’t have reservations, just to return books because they know doing so will help someone in need.”
Throughout the system of Country Inns & Suites hotels, a variety of fiction, nonfiction, children’s and self-help books are on hand for guests to borrow. To learn more about “Book It And Return,” log on to www.countryinns.com. More information about ProLiteracy Worldwide can be found at www.proliteracy.org. Courtesy of ARA Content
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