Although Winnebago’s headquarters are in Forest City, Iowa, the company has a facility in the Elkhart, Indiana, area in Middlebury. Nearby Bristol is where it held its recent owners rally, and Goshen News was there.
Organizers and participants in the first owners’ rally held by Winnebago Towables at Eby’s Pines in Bristol were excited by the community service project they were doing on the last day – making literacy kits for students at Bristol Elementary School.
Director of community engagement and volunteerism for Crossroads United Way, Jill Yoder, said they’d be putting together 107 “Winnebago-exclusive Explore Reading Literacy Carrying Cases.”
Items in the kits include a “Flat Stanley Goes Camping” book and a Flat Stanley cut out, Winnebago water bottle, Winnebago coloring book, an adventure journal, word find, two-question dice, a box of crayons, scissors, pencil, stickers and a note of encouragement. Volunteers were encouraged to decorate the box’s lids. The kits will be going to Bristol Elementary School first- and second-grade classrooms. They’ll also be creating pen pals with the owners and the students, and the owners will be able to post photos of their travels.
“Winnebago’s mission is outdoor adventure, and our mission is to build relationships and vocabulary – it’s a perfect fit,” Yoder said. “We’re super excited.”
She said the Read United program focuses on Title 1 schools and Bristol Elementary qualifies with 64% of the students considered economically disadvantaged. The goal of the program is to help students read at grade level by grade three and to “level the playing field.”
Yoder added, “Winnebago has been an amazing partner. We’re super excited and the kit is so cute! We worked together as a team putting this together and the kit is the first of its kind literacy kit so it’s special.”
Click here to read the full story from the Goshen News’ Denice Fodorow.
