RIDGEWAY/WINNSBORO – Summer fun is making the rounds in Ridgeway and Winnsboro as Story Walk brings kids and their families on to downtown sidewalks to read the “big book”, Good Food, written by DeMar Reggier, Much like a progressive dinner where participants eat from house to house until they finish the meal with dessert at the last house, so the book is read from store to store to store until it’s finished.
The giant pages of the book are taped in merchant windows up and down the streets of Ridgeway and Winnsboro, and the book is read as the reader moves down the street from store window to store window.
Book pages pasted on Ruff Furniture doors in Ridgeway.
Participants read each page and then follow the sequential numbers and simple instructions telling them where to walk and find the next page.
“This is a committee project initiated by the 15 members of Eat Smart Move More Fairfield,” explained the group’s chairperson, nutritionist Earnestine Williams. “We teamed up with the Fairfield County Libraries for the project.”
This combined effort to get folks out and moving and kids from pre-kindergarten through third grade reading more this summer is William’s first effort in this format.
“The merchants have been very supportive,” said Williams. “If the program is well received, we would continue it again next year.”
“The Good Food book has 28 pages”, she explained. “I believe we have 7 or 8 merchants in Ridgeway, and 14 merchants in Winnsboro with the enlarged pages in their windows.”
In Ridgeway, participants start at R. H. Lee & Co, 100 S. Dogwood Avenue, and proceed down Dogwood and around the block to Palmer Street and down both sides of Palmer Street.
In Winnsboro, the walk starts at Napa Auto Parts, 152 N. Congress Street, and continues down Congress Street, crosses over and continues down the opposite side of the street to finish at the library.
“We have already had some children complete the walk,” Beth Bonds, Circulation Desk Manager for the Fairfield County Library in Winnsboro, said. “After the participants have finished the whole walk by reading the book pages either in Ridgeway or Winnsboro, they can then come to the main branch of the Library in Winnsboro and receive a certificate, a prize and have their photo taken.”
The walk began June 8 and will run until July 31, 2019.
Sponsors include the Fairfield County Library, Eat Smart Move More Fairfield and Fairfield Community Coordinating Council.
For more information, Contact Williams at 803-635-1052 Ext. 2050.
