Welcome to Skagit County

April 28th, 2007

BAKER AWARDED PAUL HARRIS FELLOW BY BURLINGTON ROTARY FOR WORK ON EARLY LEARNING, LITERACY

BURLINGTON – The Burlington Morning Rotary Club recently awarded Skagit County Welcome Baby! Coordinator Meredith Baker a Paul Harris Fellow Award. Baker helped the club implement their Welcome Baby! Library Linkage Project this winter that established book carts and shelves at local libraries, food banks, and town halls for children newborn to three years of age. The project was partially funded by a grant from Rotary District 5050.

A donation of $1,000 has been made by Burlington Rotary in Baker’s name to the Paul Harris Society to provide clean drinking water, children’s library equipment, polio vaccines and playground equipment for needy people throughout the world.

Through a cooperative effort with local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, Volunteers of America and United Way of Skagit County, more than 3,000 books are now available without a library card for check-out at the following locations:

· Bread of Life Food Bank, Marblemount

· Upper Skagit Library, Concrete

· Lyman Town Hall

· Upper Skagit Tribe Child Development Center

· Burlington City Library

· Mount Vernon City Library

· Sedro-Woolley City Library

· La Conner City Library

· Anacortes City Library

Welcome Baby provides books, newsletters and toddler learning groups for newborn to three years of age and has served more than 12,000 families and children since 1997. “We can’t thank Meredith enough for allowing us to participate in such a successful literacy project,” said Dan Berentson, Burlington Rotary member. “Improving literacy is a goal of Rotary world-wide. Meredith is helping us get there.”

For more information on Welcome Baby and the Library Linkage program call Meredith Baker at 360-428-2282.