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Partly cloudy. Low 56F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..
Partly cloudy. Low 56F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
St. Joseph School students Garrott Granholm and Josh Antoine were pictured crossing swords as part of a reenactment during a study on the three Punic Wars. Garrott portrayed Hannibal, the great Carthaginian military commander, and Josh portrayed a Roman. Karen Davis’ senior World History cla…
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Jim Davidson came to the Log Cabin Democrat for an interview. Posed with one of the 10 books he’s published, Davidson started the Bookcase Project in 2005.
Jim Davidson came to the Log Cabin Democrat for an interview. Posed with one of the 10 books he’s published, Davidson started the Bookcase Project in 2005.
The Kiwanis Club of Conway is getting set to host its 13th annual Bookcase Literacy Banquet on Oct. 20, per a news release provided to the Log Cabin by Conway Kiwanis Bookcase Project Chair Richard Plotki.
The banquet, which benefits Plotkin’s Bookcase Project, will raise money to build 50 bookcases for children enrolled in CAPCA’s Conway Head Start Program in Spring 2023. The bookcases, which also include a set of starter books, have benefitted some 900 preschoolers in Conway since the program started in 2005.
Gould, Arkansas, native and Conway resident Jim Davidson started the Bookcase Project in 2005. A columnist for the Log Cabin Democrat, as well as a public speaker, author and motivational consultant, Davidson told the Log Cabin Democrat in a recent interview that he got the idea to start the project after a reader of his newspaper column alerted him to the issue of some low-income families not being able to afford to have books in their homes.
“[Former Conway Police Department Chief] Randall [Aragon] and I came up with the idea that if they didn’t have books, they sure didn’t have a bookcase,” Davidson said, referencing the need for children to receive literacy early in life.
Using the contacts he built through his work in the community and his newspaper column, Davidson said he assembled a committee that met for the first time at Conway City Hall in 2005. There, a fellow committee member who worked as a director for the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas (CAPCA), alerted him to the fact that CAPCA has a head start program for preschoolers in low-income families. After discussions, Davidson and the committee decided to make 50 bookcases for the Head Start students. Davidson paid for the wood for the first set of bookcases by selling one of the books he’s written.
After three years of funding the Bookcase Project through these means, Davidson and the committee knew they needed to have a more permanent source of funding and devised a banquet, holding the first one in 2008. Thanks to the help of a next door neighbor who worked as an assistant principal at Bob and Betty Courtway Middle School, the Bookcase Project was able to hold its banquet in the school cafeteria, Davidson said.
“We worked it out to have a banquet in the cafeteria with local entertainment,” Davidson said. “We had 200-400 people come.”
Since the project’s inception, it’s expanded and inspired people in other states to start similar projects. Bookcase projects now run in six states, Davidson said. One is as far away as Fairbanks, Alaska. Thanks to the program’s expansion, 2,500 children have benefitted nationwide, Davidson said, adding that there’s still more kids to reach.
“That’s just a drop in the bucket,” Davidson said.
When a child receives a bookcase, their name is engraved on a plaque on the case. Davidson mentioned one child who received a bookcase when the project started in 2005, JoVoni Johnson. A former quarterback for Conway High School, Johnson now attends Rice University in Texas and plays for their football team. Per Davidson, Johnson said the bookcase he received inspired him to start reading.
“JoVoni had a GPA of 4.27, an ACT score of 34, [was] the president of the 600-member Conway High School graduating class and he made All-State as a high school quarterback with a record of 10-3,” Davidson said. “The mayor of Houston has tabbed him to help with inner city programs [and] he got a bookcase that inspired him when he was 4 years old.”
In 2020, Davidson transferred control of the Bookcase Project to Plotkin and the Kiwanis Club. Per a biography Davidson provided to the Log Cabin, giving the Kiwanis Club control of the project made sense.
“This is a natural fit as the motto of Kiwanis International is ‘Serving the Children of the World,’” Davidson’s biography read.
The banquet will be held at Bob and Betty Courtway Middle School and start at 6:30 p.m. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2022 banquet is the first one since 2019. Lasting until 8:30 p.m., Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key will give the keynote address.
In a statement provided to the Log Cabin Democrat by Key, he said the Bookcase Project and other community projects like it pair well with the goals of the Department of Education’s Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (RISE).
“One of the primary elements of RISE Arkansas is creating community collaboration,” Key said. “The Bookcase Project is a great example of a community project that embodies this element of RISE Arkansas, and it has impacted the lives of students for years. While [educators] are using brain science to change the way we teach reading in the classroom, efforts like the Bookcase Project are filling a critical need by putting books in the hands of children, and it sets a great example for other communities to follow.”
Tickets are required to attend the Oct. 20 banquet. Before dinner, central Arkansas-based Fat Soul Band will perform for attendees. Additionally, patrons will have the opportunity to donate new or lightly-used books for 4-and 5-year olds.
Staff Writer Kolton Rutherford can be reached at krutherford@the
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