Volunteers from SCA have donated more than 400 hours to weekly reading program
BARTON, Ala. – A team of nine volunteers from SCA Tissue once again achieved their goal of reading twice to all 350 students at Cherokee Elementary School during the company’s annual weekly reading program at the school. This school year’s 34-week reading program started on Sept. 17, 2010, and ends May 6, 2011.
For the sixth consecutive year, SCA employees donated an hour of their time on Fridays, on a rotating basis during their regularly scheduled shift at the SCA Barton facility, to go to the school and read books to the students in pre-K through sixth grade.
SCA employees have donated more than 400 hours to reading to the students at Cherokee Elementary since the school first approached the company with the idea in January 2005.
“The kids really look forward to the SCA employees visiting their classrooms, and enjoy being read to,” said Pam Worsham, principal of Cherokee Elementary School. “As faculty, we appreciate the SCA volunteers because reading to the entire class often gets put on the back burner when teachers are busy trying to work with individual students.”
“The Cherokee Elementary School Reading Program is one of the many ways the employees in Barton, through the partnership between SCA and the United Steelworkers, give back to our surrounding communities,” said Patrick Irons, SCA Tissue converting technician, and volunteer coordinator for the reading program. The school participates in a closed-loop recycling program with SCA, which also awarded a $2,500 environmental education grant to the school last fall.
The volunteers choose the books they read to the students, based on the school’s suggested reading list, and often embellish their story times with the use of puppets and other props to encourage the students to read.
“It’s a great feeling to do something for the kids and see the profound effect our presence has on them. I know they will recall our reading sessions for years to come,” Irons said.
This year, the readers from SCA included: Karen Beahm, Neil Beahm, Nathan Belew, Sarah Freeman, Debbie Griffith, Patrick Irons, Lenita Polk, Mike Sennett and David Thornton,.
SCA Tissue has nearly 500 employees at its Barton facilities. In addition to Alabama, SCA Tissue North America, which is headquartered in Philadelphia, has manufacturing facilities in Arizona, New York and Wisconsin. The company employs more than 2,000 in the United States and Canada.
SCA employee Patrick Irons and his puppet “Chef Charlie” (back row, center) read books to the students in Ms. Candi Rutland’s pre-kindergarten class as part of SCA’s weekly reading program at Cherokee Elementary School.