Today's speaker was Tim Reardon, who is leading "Minnesota's Rally To Read" initiative, which is aimed at addressing the fact that 500,000 Minnesota children from kindergarten through high school do not read proficiently. We are 2nd to last of all 50 states, which is a pretty shocking statistic. Much research has shown that 80% of a child's brain development occurs by age 3 so that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with in the very early years of life. "Rally To Read" is a grassroots community coalition to mobilize support and establish innovative community based strategies to transform Minnesota to the state with the highest reading proficiency with the fewest racial inequities in record breaking time. The community of Monticello, MN has become the prototype for this effort. In order to reach children in the first years of life, this effort is aimed at better equipping parents to provide a learning environment at home. Rotary is becoming involved with the initiative and Anoop is part of our District's efforts toward increasing literacy across the board. Anoop also spoke at today's meeting. He introduced our speaker as well as reported about a recent visit to one of the Rotary clubs in Kyoto Japan while on vacation.