By Maddie Mizelle

The mission for Operation Storybook is to utilize the creativity and individualized skills of students at Cary Academy to create books for children in our local community and in other parts of the world. So far, Operation Storybook has only been offered as a Discovery Term here at Cary Academy, but extending the program allows us to get more high school students involved in outreach efforts while benefitting a larger population of young children. In addition to helping develop the reading skills of the children we provide the books to, Operation Storybook gives the writers, artists, and book lovers at Cary Academy a unique opportunity to follow their interests.

Our main activity for this club is creating books. However, this club is not targeted to just writers. This club offers multiple activities and has no restriction on which aspect you choose. It combines the talents of artists (illustrations), communicators/organizers (finding schools to give the books to), and presenters/speakers (reading the books). Our club also offers activities beyond creating books. We also feel it is important to research the different places we are sending the books to; therefore, we have research and culture activities. For example, in our DT, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant because our books were going to be sent to Ethiopia. In addition to sending books abroad, we donate some books to Reedy Creek and read them to the children ourselves (maybe as part of ESL in the future). This gives us real life, face-to-face experience and an excellent opportunity to get feedback on our books.