The Anson County Partnership for Children would like to thank the Anson County community for the success of the 2009 Barn Blast, the Partnership’s annual fundraiser, which was held on Jan. 30. For the third year in a row, the Barn Blast raised over $23,000, all of which is used for the Partnership’s literacy projects. Our signature project is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which sends a hardcover book in the mail every month to 950 pre-school children in Anson County. The cost to the Partnership is approximately $30 per year per child. The Partnership also provides Motheread literacy training, which encourages participants to read to their children, helps them to feel more comfortable reading aloud and provides a free book for each participant at each session. Currently, the Partnership is conducting a Motheread series for 26 participants each Thursday afternoon at Harvest Ministries. In addition, the Partnership sponsors book distributions three times a year to all children in child care and in kindergarten in Anson County and provides free books at all Partnership-sponsored events. The Partnership is constantly working to improve literacy in our county where one in three adults is functionally illiterate and cannot read this newspaper.

I especially want to thank the following major sponsors of the 2009 Barn Blast for their generous support: Anson Community Hospital; Anson High School JROTC; Hobbs, Upchurch & Associates, P.A.; Leavitt Funeral Home; Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation, Wadesboro Rotary Club and W. Cliff Martin, Jr. I also want to thank all other sponsors, ticket buyers, auction item donors, auction item buyers, food donors and the many volunteers who helped to make the Barn Blast so successful. I would like to offer special thanks to the Anson County Partnership for Children board members who supported the Barn Blast in many ways including soliciting sponsorships, serving as Master of Ceremonies and greeters, donating auction items, selling tickets and even helping in the kitchen. Lastly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the hardest working, most dedicated and most talented employees anywhere, the staff members of the Anson County Partnership for Children. Without their tireless efforts, the 2009 Barn Blast would not have been a success.

Please mark your calendars for Friday, Jan. 29, for the 2010 Barn Blast and thanks so much for helping to make Anson County a better place to be a child and to raise a child.

Elaine B. Scarborough

Executive Director

Anson County Partnership for Children