Rainbow Pride & High Flyers book awards at Hilo Union Elementary

 Rotary Club of Hilo Bay and

 Hilo Union Elementary Rainbow Pride

The Rotary Club of Hilo Bay and Hilo Union Elementary School are working together to promote reading skills at three sets of assembly events during the school year.

The Rotary Club of Hilo Bay Club and Hilo Union Elementary have worked together to promote literacy at the school for a number of years.  For example, each year the club donates a new dictionary to each of the third graders in the school.  And a few months later the club returns to do vision screening on the same third graders.

When the club approached Principal Patti Andrade-Spencer and Reading Curriculum specialist Esther Kottke what else we might do for the school, they mentioned the possibility of monetarily supporting a reading skills awards program.  Subsequently the Hilo Bay Club donated $200 to the program.

To quote Principal Andrade-Spencer “The money has been used to (help) purchase books to give our quarterly award recipients who are recognized for two awards:  the Rainbow Pride award is earned by students who consistently demonstrate the attainment of five or six of our General Learner Outcomes.  The second award is the High Flyer award earned by students who have shown great improvement toward attainment of the General Learner Outcomes.” 

General Learner Outcomes involve self-directed learning, contributing to the community, thinking in a complex manner, producing quality work, communicating effectively and using technology in an effective and ethical manner - quite ambitious goals for elementary school children!

Rotary, a global network of community volunteers, has always placed promoting literacy near the top of their set of organization goals.  The Rotary Club of Hilo Bay (www.hilobayrotary.com) is proud to support literacy at the Hilo Union Elementary school.