ROCHELLE — On Thursday, Sept. 19, the Rochelle Rotary Club presented a donation of 160 books to Lincoln Elementary School for a birthday book club program, ensuring each kindergartner at the school will be gifted one on their birthday this year. 

The book chosen for donation was “Hang in There!” by Sabrina Moyle. The Rotary Club came up with the idea to sell raffle tickets to win a Blackstone Grill that was donated by Ace Hardware to fund the project. 

“It's wonderful,” Rotary Secretary Sarah Flanagan said. “It's a community at work. That's why we live in Rochelle. It's a wonderful community that supports each other. Reading and a sense of community are important. It's great. We all work together.”

Reading is a focus of Rotary International and local clubs focus on trying to get books into the hands of students. Flanagan is also the director of the Flagg-Rochelle Public Library District, which gave her a unique view on the birthday book club program.

“It's very important for kids to have access to books because reading is important,” Flanagan said. “If you can't read, things become very difficult in your life. Reading is a great thing. It can start at a young age and parents can read to children and they can begin to recognize and sound out words. It's wonderful. Once kids learn to read and they like reading, then they like to come to the public library and their school libraries and they can check out books and keep practicing and become better readers. That's important to me.”