United Way of Southwest Minnesota brought back Jumpstart’s Read for the Record event to the southwest Minnesota region this year, which is an annual worldwide reading celebration that supports children’s literacy. The program was ultimately created to host a large shared reading experience, and celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

“It’s exciting, just because it’s something that they’ve (Jumpstart) done for many years, but then when COVID hit, they could no longer go in the schools, of course, so it was something that got put in the back burner. We stopped doing it since 2020,” United Way Community Impact and Internal Program Coordinator Tanya Moat said. “Some of the schools and some of the volunteers would ask us, are you going to bring back Read for the Record? Because they really enjoyed it … Last year, we got a grant from Great River Energy to buy the books, so we brought it back this year.”

Jumpstart is a national early-education organization that supports literacy programming for young children across the country. Read for the Record connects volunteers with local children and students for a read-aloud session, where everyone reads and hears the same book.

Read for the Record primarily connects with kindergarten to second grade students.

Photo by Samantha Davis: Toni Beebout-Bladholm, a Southwest Minnesota State University education professor, reads a book to Jamie Brigger's first grade students at Park Side Elementary in Marshall Thursday morning for Read for the Record Day.

This year’s book for the event is See Marcus Grow, written by Marcus Bridgewater, which is about the similarities between plants and children growing up, and encourages the idea of curiosity. The story line of the book follows the main character gardening with his grandmother, where he learns about all living things.

“I just think it’s a great event that really gets a community involved with their local schools,” Moat said. “It’s been fun getting it back together … (We’ve been) going out and reintroducing the program.”

Moat said there has been plenty of excitement received from volunteers, teachers and childcare centers about Read for the Record returning back to the area this year.

According to Moat, United Way saw about 146 volunteers sign up to visit around 150 different classrooms, libraries, preschools and childcare facilities on Thursday in numerous districts and towns. Volunteers include community members, and local businesses who have sent people out as well.

“It’s been really nice just to see the huge response from people,” Moat said. “It’ll be really fun to see it back after so long.”

Photo by Samantha Davis: Toni Beebout-Bladholm, a Southwest Minnesota State University education professor, reads a book to Jamie Brigger's first grade students at Park Side Elementary in Marshall Thursday morning for Read for the Record Day.

A few of the nearing cities that volunteers went over to included Marshall, Canby, Fulda, Granite Falls, Slayton, Walnut Grove, Minneota, Tracy and more.

“I had someone who was interested in volunteering approach me at a Chamber of Commerce Let’s Connect meeting, and she was excited about it because she remembered being in school and having somebody come and read for Read for the Record,” Moat said. “It’s that passing it forward (impact). She remembered how much it impacted her. We’re talking, it’s at least been 20 years since she had that person read, but it still was something that was so strongly in her memory, and how much that meant to her to have somebody from the community come read. It was just fun and different, and she was looking forward to being able to do it herself now.”

One of the volunteers included Toni Beebout-Bladholm, an education professor at Southwest Minnesota State University, who took a visit to Jamie Brigger’s first grade classroom at Park Side Elementary in Marshall Thursday morning to read the book.

Moat also mentioned that SMSU’s School of Education had about 30 people volunteer for the event, including professors and education students.

Brigger’s students showed eagerness and attentiveness to the book as Beebout-Bladholm read aloud, and also had a fun conversation throughout and after the reading to further talk about the book and to also get to know Beebout-Bladholm.

Photo by Samantha Davis: Toni Beebout-Bladholm, a Southwest Minnesota State University education professor, reads a book to Jamie Brigger's first grade students at Park Side Elementary in Marshall Thursday morning for Read for the Record Day.

Relating to the book, Beebout-Bladholm brought in a gardening project where the students planted small pots of various plants and vegetables after the reading, which built up the excitement in the room even more.

“Our focus here at the United Way of Southwest Minnesota, we do emphasize a lot on early childhood development. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library, children from birth to age five can get a free monthly book, we’ve done Stuff the Bus (providing students with school supplies) … It is a great focus of ours,” Moat said. “So, we are excited to go back and help promote childhood literacy, and allow parents and grandparents that opportunity to go back and have a chance to read for their kids. They’re super excited about it.”

According to Jumpstart, Read for the Record has seen more than 30 million volunteers over the two-decade long program with all 50 states participating and more than two million books that have been distributed to children.

United Way noted that locally in the past 11 years that they have sponsored the event, there have been 1,100 volunteers that have read to 26,000 students across the region. United Way services the counties of Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Yellow Medicine, Cottonwood, Lac qui Parle, Nobles and Redwood along with the respective school districts in each.

While children across the area, and country, all heard and experienced the same book on Thursday, the tradition of Read for the Record continues to see a positive turnout in the support between a community and early education, and also makes memories for all.

“Sometimes, your heart grows a little fonder in the absence of something, and you forget. I think for some people, they forgot (about Read for the Record). So, this will be a really good reminder of a community showing up for kids,” Moat said. “It’s not going to take too much of their time. You’re just reading a children’s picture book, but the fact of spending 15 or 20 minutes with some preschoolers or kindergartners, it means a great deal to them.”