Pickens Ferst Week Proclamation

Pickens FERST Week Proclamation/2014Whereas The Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy was chartered by the State of Georgia in 1999 as the result of Georgia Citizen, Robin Ferst, and

Whereas the mission of The Ferst Foundation is to offer, free, to all pre-school children in Georgia age-appropriate books from the “Read to Me” library each month along with a newsletter, child’s activity sheet and parent’s reading guide; and

Whereas the Rotary Club of Jasper, Georgia, in 2009 accepted the challenge to organize the Ferst program for over 1650 pre-school children in Pickens County and mailed the first two books in May 2009; and

Whereas the evaluation of the Pickens Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy has shown that the children in Pickens County kindergarten who received Ferst books were more ready to learn compared to the rest of the classroom as a whole; and

Whereas research has continually shown that when adults read aloud to children from birth, it promotes increased language development and a better understanding of language which leads to literacy success; and

Whereas the tireless work of Pickens Ferst Foundation Community Action Team (CAT) volunteers with the strong support of the Pickens County community have created a successful program which has mailed out over 50,000 free books since 2009 to Pickens County children under the age of 5: and

Whereas the 2014 goal of The Pickens Ferst Foundation is to enroll 70 – 75% of preschoolers in the program which will require over 1,200 books to be mailed each month to Pickens County children at a cost of approximately $35,000 a year; and

Whereas the Vernal Equinox occurs on March 20, 2014 and marks the first day of Spring 2014;

Be it therefore resolved this Tenth day of March 2014 that March 20 through 27, 2014 is proclaimed as PICKENS FERST WEEK throughout the County of Pickens, State of Georgia, and USA.

Signed by Robert P. Jones
Pickens County Commission Chair

Submitted by: By Sue Appleton/Pickens Ferst Foundation