County Executive Thomas P. Gordon is pleased to announce that the Young Writers Workshop at Rose Hill Boys & Girls Club will present a copy of its book, "The Story of Dr. Velma", to Velma Scantlebury, M.D., FACS, associate director of the Kidney Transplant Program at Christiana Care Health System.
The ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 31 at the John H. Ammon Medical Education Center at Christiana Care’s Christiana Hospital in Newark. Media are welcome to attend.
The Young Writers at Rose Hill selected Dr. Scantlebury as their inspiration because she became the United States’ first African-American female transplant surgeon in 1989. In Dr. Scantlebury’s career, she has performed more than 1,000 kidney transplants.
“The Young Writers at Rose Hill picked an extraordinary woman to write about,” Gordon said. “I met Dr. Scantlebury at the Great Women in History event we held in March at Rockwood Museum, and I was very impressed.”
In an effort to expose children to writing, editing, illustrating and the overall collaborative book development process, New Castle County’s Department of Community Services established the New Castle County Young Writers Workshop. Under the supervision of project coordinators, eight teams worked to write and illustrate their own book. The workshops are sponsored by New Castle County, M&T Bank and Delaware PAL.
The book projects were entered in the national Kids Are Authors competition, offered by Scholastic Books, and the Boys & Girls Club at Rose Hill won honorable mention for its book, “Dr. Velma”.
This team’s project leader was Community Services General Manager Sophia Hanson.
For a photo of the team and the book cover, please click here.
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