Kiwanis Club teams with United Way to continue Read to Succeed program

For half an hour a day, students in kindergarten through fourth grade in the Cape Girardeau School District have the opportunity to read with a volunteer to help improve reading skills through the Read to Succeed program, an initiative through the United Way of Southeast Missouri, now with the help of the Kiwanis Club of Cape Girardeau.

The program has been around for eight years, with much success.

“The whole point is to help these kiddos succeed and help them develop,” said Robin Koetting, Read to Succeed project manager. “Our goal is to see at least one year’s growth per semester in reading, which we always see that, plus more.”

Read to Succeed has helped students kindergarten through first grade build their reading skills, and more recently expanded to second, third and fourth grades, when the United Way of Southeast Missouri received a grant for the 2017-2018 school year through DeltaCorps, a branch of the AmeriCorps and the Delta Regional Authority.

About three-quarters through the grant-funded year, the United Way of Southeast Missouri found out DeltaCorps was disintegrating, according Koetting.

“It isn’t like we just lost the funding; they did away with the grant entirely,” Koetting said. “[But] the success that we saw with those older students was so great, that we didn’t want to let it go.”

That’s when the organization approached the Kiwanis Club of Cape Girardeau, which has a history of working with the United Way of Southeast Missouri, and the club stepped up.

“[The United Way] really needed that money, and all of a sudden it went away, so they were going to have to cut plans and cut the program,” said Michael Anders, treasurer of the Kiwanis Club of Cape Girardeau. “We said that’s not acceptable and wanted to give them what they needed to be able to continue.”

Chartered in 1942, according to Anders, the Kiwanis Club’s top priority is helping “the children of our community.”

The Kiwanis Club holds fundraisers throughout the year through raffles, chili cook-offs and other events, Anders said.

While the Kiwanis Club supports the continued expansion of the program for all elementary school-aged children, the program as a whole has funding and support from private donors, the Cape Girardeau School District, the United Way and other funding sources. Through all this support, the program has also expanded into Scott City Elementary first-grade classrooms.

The funding has supported the reading program into the summer, which was resurrected last year, Koetting said.

With the initial funding through DeltaCorps, the summer program was launched and modeled after their in-school program, with the exception it’s held at the Cape Girardeau Public Library, Koetting said. This year, the summer program will continue with an adjusted budget, beginning June 18 and running for five weeks at the public library.

“It’s great there, they have a great space in their kids’ department,” Koetting said. “There’s a lot of flexible seating — just fun spaces, little nooks and crannies that the kids can go read in with their volunteers.”

Koetting also expressed her appreciation for the volunteer base that makes the program possible.

“Without those volunteers, we couldn’t’ have it. The volunteers are everything,” she said.

This semester, Koetting said there are 115 volunteers, but are always looking and welcoming more. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact her at robin.koetting@unitedwayofsemo.org.

“I can’t reiterate enough to people how rewarding it is,” Koetting said. “When you’re reading with a child, and they struggle and struggle and you’re helping them sound out every single word, and then all of a sudden, one day, they just read the book start to finish ... you get to cheer with them and be excited with them and do a happy dance with them or whatever, and it’s really cool, it’s cool to see.”

kjackson@semissourian.com

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