 History: Sarah Mynhier, an alumnus of Deerpath Middle School and Lake Forest High School, has a passion for literacy. (Scroll down all the way to see a photo of Sarah!) For two years, at LFHS, she led a program to collect and distribute books for children in neighboring communities - distributing more than 4,000 books to Oak Terrace School in Highwood, North School in North Chicago, Women's Residential Services, A Safe Place and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization. When she graduated from LFHS, the Volunteer Center (now named Lake County Cares) honored Sarah for her service and agreed to manage the book drive as her legacy.
Sarah's Dream: Read with Me!
With the help of the Buchanan Family Foundation and Lake Forest Orthodontics & Pediatric Dentistry, Lake County Cares has been able to expand our book drive program into a reading/service-learning program. Sarah's Dream: Read with Me! brings third graders from Oak Terrace Elementary school in Highwood and Clearview Elementary School in Waukegan--to Lake Forest Country Day School and Lake Bluff Elementary School to read with fourth and fifth graders. On October 13th, more than 200 third graders will be bussed to these two Lake Forest and Lake Bluff schools for their first day of reading and learning together. The well-loved story Johnny Appleseed serves as their introductory book. On December 8th the buddies will meet again to read Too Many Tamales. (The March book and dates are tbd. The children will reverse directions for this final meeting with all Lake Forest/Lake Bluff fourth and fifth granders traveling to Waukegan and Highwood schools). Read articles about this program via the links listed below:
Pioneer Press
Lake Bluff Elementary, LFCDS welcome Reading Buddy Children; October 21, 2010
Lake County News-Sun
Reading Buddies Bond Over Books; October 14, 2010
More About Sarah. . .
 “As an engineer, my tremendous love of reading has given me an advantage in my field. Most of the engineers I meet are not avid readers. And the fact that we’re not able to take any English classes in college doesn’t help matters! I quickly decided that just because I was an engineer, I wasn’t going to give up my love of reading. I took it upon myself to acquire a liberal arts education in my spare time. I do it mostly on vacation—reading voraciously. For me, it helps to have the balance and the separation from my work.”
“I was so excited to hear that Lake County Cares will be partnering with the students of Oak Terrace Elementary School in Highwood and Clearview Elementary School in Waukegan to pursue my dream! While I was a senior at LFHS I read three days a week with a third grader at Oak Terrace named Esther. I purposely scheduled my free period and lunch period back to back so I could spend some quality time reading with Esther. We also spoke Spanish together which helped me develop my interest in the language.”
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