8 more days til our Stories Event!!!

Just over a week til our big Spring event! On Saturday April 18th 10am-2pm we are hosting a very fun event to promote reading! We will have face painting, storytellers, very yummy specially made cookies, and raffle prizes!! As part of the event, we are collecting new and gently used childrens' books to be donated to the Minnesota Literacy Council (especially needed are chapter books for the "more advanced" children's readers) Our goal is to collect 200 books....wanna guess what our tally is already?????? 125 books collected so far!!! We are well on our way to reach (and exceed) our goal!!

:Your book donations will benefit three children's programs of the Minnesota Literacy Council: Summer Reads helps low-income children and children with limited English proficiency in grades K-3 maintain or improve their reading skills throughout the summer. Over an eight-week period, 70 VISTAs (Volunteers in Service to America) read more than 13, 000 books with 7000 children in community programs. Summer Reads gives away more than 4500 books to young readers.

The Early Literacy and Families Program empowers parents to be their children's first and most important teachers. Through language-rich preschool classes, adult English language classes and home visits from bilingual literacy coaches, parents learn to incorporate literacy building activities into everyday home tasks to nurture their children's emerging literacy skills and school readiness.

Minnesota Reading Corps is a statewide initiative to help every Minnesota child become a successful reader by the end of third grade. In more than 160 schools throughout Minnesota, 362 AmeriCorps members work with 15,000 children ages three to grade three build vocabulary, phonemic awareness adn reading fluency.