This Friday, we look forward to a performance by the Dresden Elementary Chorus with director and teacher of music Anthony Hoebeke.  The Chorus has been delighting us with their music at our Holiday luncheon for most of the last 20 years - a tradition started when Bill Woulfin was our President in 2003.  Our relationship with Dresden goes farther back - started in 1998 thanks to our then president, Jennie Springer.  She encouraged us to visit the school Principal to find out how we could share a positive influence with the school and the community.  The result was a character ed program where members visited classes regularly to discuss and encourage good Character traits for students as well as everybody else.

About that time we discovered that these children, from lower income families, did not have their own books at home.  That’s when the RCD started the Holiday Book project at Dresen.  We’ve been providing new books to every child at the December Holiday break every year since, That’s 25 years. To show their appreciation the school has brought their chorus to our Holiday Luncheon here at the Dunwoody County Club to share some of their favorite Holiday songs.  Their performance is always a treat.

This year we are doing the book project again but with twist.  New books will be delivered to the school electronically.  Every new book will be delivered to the school library to add to their “digital library."   Now every student at Dresden will be able to access every new book via the personal computer they are already using at their desks which have been provided by the county for all their school work.

Dresden has already been successfully using this approach for their digital library.  In fact out of 28 schools in DeKalb County, Dresden Elementary School is ranked as one of the top two schools in student usage.  It helps that while students can access the digital library via their assigned computer during the school day they can also access the library at home via their parent's phones, pads, computers and other electronic devices.

We are pleased to be able to add to Dresden’s Digital Library and plan to have  the Principal and Librarian visit us at a future meeting to further update us on how the program is going.  Needless to say the Rotary Club of Dunwoody is thrilled to enter our twenty sixth year in partnership with Dresden Elementary School and their community.