Ginger Malmstrom, a member of the Abendschone Chapter NSDAR, has won a major award in competition for “Outstanding Service of a DAR Member in the Area of Literacy Development in Children.”

The award was given to honor her volunteer work with the “Connecting Books with Kids” project for Carroll County area first-graders, as well as promoting child literacy at the ECHO clinic children’s center. She won at the Arkansas state level, and will go on to compete at higher DAR levels.

In the past nine years, Malmstrom has given between 600 and 700 books each year to 31 to 33 first-grade classrooms in eight area schools. Taking an average of 650 books a year for nine years, she personally has been responsible for giving a total of approximately 5,850 books, thus influencing the lives of just as many children.