Dayton RTA Helps to Combat Student Summer Slide

July 14, 2015

The Greater Dayton RTA is again an active partner in Dayton’s summer-long effort aimed at encouraging children to read to help prevent “summer slide.”   Read On RTA was initiated last summer, but speculation of how many books would be needed were grossly underestimated.  Over 5,000 books were distributed to area children last summer, but the demand was much, much larger than that.

Read On RTA is an 11-week summer campaign to get books into the hands of Dayton region citizens who need them most:  young people.  Free books, both new and gently-used, are available on bright green bookshelves at all five RTA transit centers.  Kids, their parents, and their grandparents are encouraged to take a book to read, return it for another, or keep it for their own library. 

“These kids really want to read,” said RTA Coordinator Tracey Hanlin Rohr, “and we’re inviting them to be the hero of their own life story.”

Children often gather while RTA staffers load bookshelves with kid’s books. “Books,” they exclaim.  “Can I have a book?”  They would try to wait patiently, but could not always contain their enthusiasm.  The overwhelming popularity of Read On RTA last year made it easy to decide to expand the program this year, said Rohr.    

“I set an early goal of obtaining 10,000 books to distribute,” said Rohr.  To her delight, the book collection campaign has well exceeded that amount.  Thanks to the generosity of a number of sources, Read On RTA accumulated almost 19,000 books to distribute to local at-risk children.   

“We are distributing around 1,300 books per week via our transit centers,” said Rohr.  RTA gets help in the effort from Dayton Metro Library employees and volunteers who stop by assigned transit centers weekly to stock the books.  RTA Transit ambassadors and “anyone I can get to drive around to transit centers with cartons of books” also help deliver, said Rohr. 

The RTA used a super hero theme for both book collection and distribution.  The books came from a variety of sources:  the Dayton Metro Library, Project Read, the Clark County Library, the Look At A Book store, Half-Price Books, transit customers, and the generous employees of the agency.  RTA also took advantage of a publisher’s overstock program to obtain close to 5,000 new books for just the cost of shipping. 

“People just began bringing in cartons of books,” said Rohr.  Once they understood their donation would go out to benefit children in the community, they began donating.  “Our on-duty police officer just this morning said he would be bringing in the books his son outgrew,” she said.

The Read on RTA campaign includes outreach events, said Rohr.  “We take every opportunity we can to go to where children gather,” said Rohr.  Staffers take the agency’s On the Road bus to programs and feeding sites where at-risk children gather. The short presentation includes pointing out to kids that whatever they want to be when they grow up requires reading skills. 

Rohr usually reads the kids a great book then invites them to choose a book to take home. The Read On RTA program includes an ambitious 13 outreach events, and are now half way through the summer schedule. 

“We are hosting a group of children from the local Mini University for a lunchtime reading event, we’ve been to several reading programs, and we get to return to some community lunch sites where I know children will come running when they see our big green bus, said Rohr.

“Working directly with kids is such a gratifying part of my job,” she said.

The Read On RTA message is clear:  the bus can take you where you want to go in the Dayton region, but reading can take you where you want to go in life.  The program encourages kids to get started reading right away by putting a book directly into their hands. 

Everyone from Executive Director Mark Donaghy to the RTA transit ambassadors is committed to the Read On RTA summer reading program.    

“Reading is a basic building block for all learning,” said Donaghy.  “RTA is definitely all in when it comes to serving the needs of the community, especially children,” he added.