The College of Charleston is hosting more than 400 Charleston County School District (CCSD) 4th grade students over two days as part of the Literacy Outreach Initiative (LOI). Students from Pepperhill Elementary School, James Simons Elementary School, Memminger School of Global Studies, Mitchell Elementary School, Mary Ford Elementary School, Chicora School of Communications and Sanders-Clyde Elementary School will have visited campus.

On Friday, December 16, 2011, the students will begin their day at either the Cistern Yard (66 George Street) or the Avery Research Center (125 Bull St.) and will end with lunch from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the hospitality suite of the TD Arena, where the men’s basketball team and Coach Bobby Cremins will join the students.

As part of the Literacy Outreach Initiative, the College of Charleston Department of Teacher Education developed a curriculum for the young reader edition of “Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom,” an autobiography of Ellen and William Craft. Honors College students went into CCSD elementary schools and taught the curriculum. Now those elementary school students are coming to campus to engage further with the book and the idea of attending college.

The Crafts were slaves from Macon, Georgia who escaped to freedom and eventually wrote about their clever escape plans in their autobiography. Descendants of the Craft family settled in Charleston and donated original papers and artifacts to the Avery Research Center. On Friday, December 16th, the great-great-granddaughter of the Crafts will be at the Avery Center to welcome the students and answer questions.

The goals of the project are to inspire a love of reading, an understanding that reading is crucial to educational achievement, and the setting of long-range academic goals, including a plan to attend college. Led by Honors College alum and AmeriCorps VISTA, Andrea DeSantis, all freshmen in the Honors College have served as mentors as part of a service learning project in their first-year experience class. The Literacy Outreach Initiative is a collaborative project of the Honors College, the School of Education, Health, and Human Performance, The Avery Research Center, the Office of Civic Engagement, The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and The College Reads! This project is funded thanks to the generosity of the Rotary of Club of Charleston and Sean and Elizabeth Moore of Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

For more information, contact Trisha Folds-Bennett at 843.991.9344.