Mayor Gayle Reads Across Valdosta
School is out for the summer but the efforts to encourage young students to read is year round. This summer, Valdosta Mayor John Gayle is reading to children in the Valdosta and Lowndes County communities at local child-care centers and family child-care learning homes.
This is the third year Mayor Gayle is participating in Read Across Valdosta, which is a local version of the statewide Read Across Georgia program created by Gov. Nathan Deal and First Lady Sandra Deal.
The program started on Tuesday, June 10 and will continue until Tuesday, July 10. The Mayor has already visited six child-care programs and plans to visit four more on Monday, July 9, and Tuesday, July 10.
"Literacy begins at a very early age," Gayle said. "The youth are the future of this community, learning the fundamentals of reading and literacy is crucial to their success as adults. I am happy to participate in a program that shows children across our community reading is important and it can be fun."
While reading to children, Mayor Gayle is joined by Jill O'Meara, DECAL's South Georgia Early Education Empowerment Zone (E3Z) community coordinator for Brooks, Colquitt, Cook, Echols, and Lowndes Counties. Stops this year have included, Child Care Network, The Kids Depot, Jackson Heights Christian Academy, Open Doors Child Development Center, Bright Start Preschool and Learning Center, and family child-care homes operated by Alberta Watson, Elaine Day, Pamela Stokes, Gennatt Williams and Betty Dye.
This year the Mayor is reading the book "Behind the Little Red Door." The book is written by Coy Bowles of the Zac Brown Band. Bowles is a Georgia native and wrote the book to honor the 25th birthday of Georgia's Pre-K program.
