Spencer Owen Community Schools and United Way of Monroe County are partnering to bring Real Men Read to Owen County. Real Men Read MENtors have been visiting the eight kindergarten classrooms once a month, boxes of books in tow, to share their own love of reading. MENtors hand out free books at the beginning of each visit to eager students who then gather in a circle to follow along with the story and excitedly interact with the reader by sharing questions, guessing what will happen next in the story, and doing activities to help bring the book to life. At the end of the story, before high-fives and good-byes, the kindergarteners are encouraged to take their new book home to read over and over again with their parents. Through this five-month pilot program, coordinated by United Way of Monroe County with funding from Duke Energy Foundation, over 1,000 books have been distributed to the SOCS kindergarteners.