The  $20,000 Rotary District grant our club helped win for Reading Enriches All Children (REACH Foundation) is helping 1,150 vulnerable children this year. These are children living in area homeless or domestic violence shelters. The Rotary Club of Norfolk teamed up with the Rotary Clubs of Portsmouth, Town Center and Virginia Beach last year to win the district grant for REACH. The clubs added another $2,000 to the grant. The grant enabled REACH to purchase 902 books for children ranging in ages from infants to age 17 as well as book bags, shelving, an Ellison die cut machine, storage equipment and craft supplies. 
 
So far 30 Rotarians have had background checks and training and are reading in teams monthly at one of six area homeless or domestic violence shelters -- YWCA and Haven House in Norfolk, HER Shelter in Portsmouth, Samaritan House and Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation in Virginia Beach and Genieve Shelter in Suffolk. At each reading session, volunteers lead a craft activity and give each child two new books and a book bag to keep. Inside each book is a Rotary book plate. The bags also have Rotary branding on them. If you would like to join a Rotary reading team let Jim Kitz know.