The Vidalia City School System is always focusing on ways to better educate children, and now, the leadership has found a way to reach out children even before they are born. It’s called Bundle-to-Bundle.

“We are excited to have received this grant,” Assistant School Superintendent and Curriculum Director Ginger Morris said. “We are using the tagline ‘Our Bundle of Joy for Your Bundle of Joy.”

Partnering with Memorial Health Meadows Hospital, the funds will be used to prepare bags for all parents of babies born at the medical facility. Inside the bags are materials that are intended to begin instilling literacy in children from newborn to age five. The bags will also include valuable and useful information for parents so that they can evaluate the progress their child is making.

Morris says the funding for Bundle-to-Bundle is possible through a competitive federal grant and the Vidalia City School System isn’t the only one in the county to receive the grant.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that the Toombs County School System also received the grant,” she said. “We are coordinating together so that we can most effectively used this federal money that funnels through the state for our local area.”

The funds from the grant are expected to last approximately three years, and Morris said she is hopeful that as the federal funds are depleted local businesses or others in the community will be willing to contribute to keep the initiative ongoing.

“Every baby born at the hospital will get a bag regardless of which county their family resides.

“Literacy for one is literacy for all,” Morris concluded, “and it’s so important that we start early in teaching all students.”