September is Basic Education and Literacy Month for Rotary. This is one of Rotary’s seven areas of focus. We all know how critical reading and writing are for success in life – for gaining information, communicating, making agreements, and so forth.Enhancing Basic Education skills and Literacy are essential in reducing poverty, improving health, encouraging community and economic development, and promoting peace. Improvements can reduce maternal death, improve childhood survivability, and reduce poverty. They can also enable success in business or a profession.Projects undertaken by a Rotary Club can address low adult literacy, returning youth to school, enhancing student performance, or supplementing limited school resources.Consider how our club is, or could showcase "THE MAGIC OF ROTARY by supporting basic education and literacy in our community or somewhere else in the world.Projects related to literacy that our Club supports include the Ready to Read program at Skidompha Library, non-fiction books signed by guest speakers and donated to local libraries, Karl’s Kids, the Club’s global grant focusing on the Amani Street Children in Tanzania and Trick a Denti-Book Trunk at Halloween.September is also National Literacy Month, a time to encourage the young people in your life to go to the library, pick up a good book, and explore new worlds.By getting books in the hands of kids, you can help engage these young readers in their learning and help them see how school, community, and the world beyond are connected.