The Mesquite Rotary Club presented a donation of $2,000 to the Mesquite Association of Retired School Employees book project at their meeting on November 18th. In accepting the check from Rotary president Lindsay Paris, MARSE president Elaine Hornsby expressed her thanks for Rotary’s financial support and volunteer assistance. MARSE book project chair Susan Cumby added her thanks for the donation, and mentioned that the club’s funding would greatly support the project’s goal of again providing a book of their own to each Mesquite ISD first grader.
The MARSE book project has been an ongoing commitment since 1999. Each year they have been able to provide an increasing number of MISD first grade students with their own "take home" book. The books are new ones, and they are specially selected to coordinate with the children’s reading curriculum in their schools. The project is designed to promote the love of reading, the development of students’ personal book collections, and to assist in the development of the students’ reading skills.