Driven to Read

Driven To Read

Driven To Read (DTR) is an annual drive to collect gently read children books.

DTR will be collecting books at dealerships across the state of New Jersey, October 1 through November 30, 2007.

Rotarians interested in picking up books from ealerships and distributing them to underprivileged children in their communities should contact M. J. Salvato at driventoread@yahoo.com
Automotive dealers serve as drop off sites for the books. Rotarians pick the books up and distribute them to organizations serving disadvantaged children.

Enrolling dealers is coordinated by NJCAR, the NJ Coalition of Automotive Retailers.

Enrolling Rotary clubs is coordinated by the district Driven To Read Chair.

This project costs participants nothing, yet the returns are priceless.

Driven To Read gives the participants the opportunity to create awareness for literacy and Rotary through creative public relations in promoting the collection and distribution of the children books to support literacy.

Last year, 2006, more than 26,000 books were collected in our DTR inaugural year thanks to the generosity of the automotive public. Those books were put into the hands of children by caring Rotarians, because a book should not be a luxury for a child.

Some of the 2006 Driven To Read stars are as follows:

• The Berlin (Larry Gorin) and Mid Jersey Cape (Francey Burke) clubs of District 7640 members are auto dealers. They took all 5500 books collected in their district and gave them to the Camden County Free Library.
   
• Maria Masciandaro President of the Elizabeth Rotary (7510) collected over 7000 books from all over NJ for her community organizations serving disadvantaged children.
   
• Brian Boak from the Hackensack Rotary (7490) divided 600 books between the YCS Youth Consultation Services and the Bergen CAP.
   
• The Flemington Club headed by President Bob Chittenden had one of the biggest collections of books to deal with from their local dealer. The Flemington Food Pantry received over 1800 books from Driven to Read.
   
• Lou Kady of the Carteret club(7510) was delighted to participate in Driven to Read even though Carteret has no Auto dealers. Lou collected books in his daily travels from dealers so his community?s children would benefit.
   
• President Kevin Peerson and Pres-elect Barb Czarnecki from the Edison Rotary (7510) found a home in their town for books at the Ozanam shelter in Edison.
   
• MaryJane Salvato, Creator of Driven To Read, Branchburg Rotarian(7510) and Automotive dealer collected over 2600 books. She spread the word by producing a PSA message for local cable, got two Gannet daily newspapers to donate 12 full page ads listing the drop off sites, and gave out thousands of book marks she made to schools and parents. Many of her books went to the Somerset County Food Bank to be included in Holiday Food baskets. Her InterAct club at the Somerset County Vocational High School read books at organizations serving local children.  

Driven To Read was inspired by NJCAR's work with New Jersey Reads: The Foundation for Literacy www.newjerseyreads.org, a statewide non-profit created to raise illiteracy awareness. Four out of ten adults in New Jersey are functionally illiterate, meaning they can't read or understand English well enough to follow directions or take action on important information. Contact MaryJane at admin@driventoread.com for more info.