Nickell Foundation supports summer reading in Greenbrier

by Book DistributionChaptersEventsNewsSupporters

A $5,000 grant from the Mary B. Nickell Foundation brings Read Aloud one step closer to full funding of a summer reading initiative in Greenbrier County.

The pilot program is modeled after a longitudinal study by literacy researchers Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen. The University of Tennessee education professors found that providing self-selected books for summer reading was as beneficial to reading achievement as summer school. Read Aloud will work with the Greenbrier County Campaign for Grade Level Reading to implement the program at Crichton Elementary.

“These funds, along with a grant of $3,000 from Greenbrier County’s Hollowell Foundation, bring us much closer to our goal of $10,000 for full implementation in all grades at the school,” said Lynn Kessler, Communications and Development Director for Read Aloud. “We’re extremely grateful to both the Nickell and Hollowell Foundations for their votes of confidence in this project.”

The Mary B. Nickell Foundation administers funds entrusted to it for the promotion of the arts and for educational purposes to encourage the development and appreciation of the arts and for the promotion of the happiness and well-being of the community centered in and around Greenbrier County.

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Roane County community engagement funded by The Education Alliance

by ChaptersEventsNewsSupportersVolunteer Readers

A grant from The Education Alliance enabled Read Aloud WV to host two fall kick-off events designed to engage new community volunteers in the The-Education-Alliance Logoorganization’s Roane County program.

The funding was provided through the Education Powers Tomorrow campaign, an initiative of the Alliance supported by funding from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation. The campaign encourages community members to mentor, read to students or to become involved in local education in various ways.

“We all know the proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ and what an essential role each member of a community has to play in the growth and development of its young people,” said Roane County Read Aloud Chair Margaret Goffreda.  “The grants provided organizations like ours the connections to promote a greater understanding and support within our community for a stronger education system.”

The Education Alliance is a statewide nonprofit organization which operates programs and advances policies to improve achievement by public school students in West Virginia. For more information, visit www.powereducationwv.com, or contact the Alliance at 1-866-314-KIDS or powereducationwv@educationalliance.org.

 

Books-A-Million supports Read Aloud in Raleigh County

by ChaptersDonorsEventsNewsSupporters

On September 19, 2015, Books-A-Million in Beckley had a “book fair” to support Read Aloud West Virginia. This was the brainchild of Anne-Marie Johnson, the store’s General Manager and a Raleigh County Read Aloud board member. From noon to 4:00 p.m., customers were asked if they would like 10% of their purchase to be donated to Read Aloud, which resulted in a $167 donation.

“Books-A-Million is committed to becoming involved in the communities it serves, and recognizes the critical importance of literacy,” noted Johnson. This is just one of the types of local fundraising it supports. Johnson believes BAM and Read Aloud are a perfect fit of interests, and hopes that an ongoing, state-wide partnership between the two can be developed.

BUZZ: New Read Aloud video a call to action

by NewsReadingResourcesSupportersVideosVolunteer Readers

By Sara Busse

Although one goal of Read Aloud is to limit screen time, a new video produced by West Virginia State University’s Extension Service is creating a buzz about reading aloud across West Virginia.

Lynn Kessler, director of communications and development for RAWV, said the group needed a tool to spread its message. A conversation with West Virginia State University extension agent and Summers County Read Aloud coordinator Stacy Ford at the Read Aloud summer conference led to a collaboration between RAWV and WVSU.

“Matt Browning and Megan Sheets in West Virginia State University’s communications and media departments took it and ran. They were such an incredible help to us in creating a tool that we could not have created without them,” Kessler explained.

Browning and Sheets, both graduates of WVSU and self-proclaimed “total book nerds,” described the video as a call to action to recruit volunteer readers.

Browning and Sheets filmed readers in Summers and Kanawha county, as well as “b-roll” footage featuring extension agents in the library and reading to children. The video was an in-kind donation to Read Aloud, and Sheets said it’s the first time they were able to branch out and do work for another entity besides the University.

The video also features an interview with Read Aloud Executive Director Mary Kay Bond.

“She came to our studio on campus, and she’s like a brochure for Read Aloud in person,” Sheets said, laughing. “She was great.”

Browning said the readers and children were very comfortable in front of the camera because they were engrossed in the reading.

“There was one gentleman, he was an absolute hoot!” he said. “The reader had so much fun with those kids, and they were having so much fun, it made it easy.”

NGK supports Read Aloud, local communities

by DonorsNewsSupportersUncategorized

NGK Spark Plugs (U.S.A.), Inc. recently announced they will become a corporate sponsor of Read Aloud West Virginia. A $3,000 contribution in 2015 is the first in what is anticipated to be a multi-year partnership.

The company joins ECA and BrickStreet as ongoing sponsors.

“NGK is proud to partner with Read Aloud West Virginia in an effort to increase reading capability in our schools,” said NGK Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Bob Pepper.

“High education standards are critical to the success of our state,” Pepper continued, “and Read Aloud WV’s program is vital to that effort.”

Read Aloud Executive Director Mary Kay Bond noted the donation is both a show of support for Read Aloud and a clear indicator of the company’s dedication to the well-being of West Virginia’s communities.

“NGK’s corporate partnership enables us to continue our efforts to build program consistency around the state. It also underscores the company’s commitment to the citizens of West Virginia,” noted Bond.

Read Aloud WV is very grateful to NGK for their vote of confidence.

 

Family honors patriarch’s love of reading, golf

by DonorsNewsSupporters

The Paul Fox Memorial Foundation has given Read Aloud West Virginia $4,000, which the Fox family raised at its Memorial Golf Tournament in May. The family started the event in memory of Paul Fox, who was an avid golfer. He also was an avid reader, a trait that influenced future generations of the Fox family and ultimately resulted in their gift to Read Aloud.

The event attracted 112 players. BrickStreet was the lead sponsor.

Son-in-law David Walker explained, “Paul was an avid golfer. He got me into golf. He also was an avid reader. He was not a college person, but he was an unbelievable reader. It rubbed off on my girls. My oldest daughter Kinsey went into philosophy (an area of strong interest for Fox.)” She joined Teach for America and now is pursuing a degree in education policy at Vanderbilt University.

Walker, who has a degree in education, read aloud in his daughters’ classrooms for 10 or 12 years at Richmond Elementary in Charleston, and he is occasionally asked back to read even now. The teachers need men to serve as reading role models, he said.

Walker’s wife, Kathleen, and daughters Kinsey and Karley all have been volunteer readers and attended Seuss-A-Palooza events at BrickStreet, where Walker is employed as a safety and loss consultant, and then Read-A-Palooza at Paterno’s at the Park in Charleston.

That exposure led Kinsey to ask her father, “Why don’t we make a donation to Read Aloud West Virginia?” which they did.

The importance of a strong grandparent-parent-child connection exemplified by the Fox-Walker family is one that Read Aloud emphasizes through its parent education program, Director Mary Kay Bond said. Parents and grandparents remain the primary influence in creating lifelong readers.

“That is a crucial link,” she said. She plans to expand Read Aloud’s efforts in this area with physicians and the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program.

“The Fox contribution is an incredible gift,” Bond said. “It gives us flexibility to more easily tailor programs to chapter needs.”

Hollowell helps Read Aloud partner with Greenbrier Campaign for Grade Level Reading

by NewsSupporters

By Lynn Lewis Kessler

The Hollowell Foundation, a Greenbrier County-based philanthropy, recently awarded a $3,000 grant to Read Aloud West Virginia. The grant provides partial funding to initiate a program designed to reduce summer reading loss.

Read Aloud, a partner in Greenbrier County Schools’ Campaign for Grade Level Reading, plans to offer a program that allows students at Crichton Elementary to self-select paperback books to read throughout the summer. The program is based on a study conducted by Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen. The three-year study provided self-selected, high-interest material for students to read during the summer months and found those students engaged more often in voluntary summer reading and had significantly higher reading achievement than a control group.

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading is a collaborative effort by foundations, non-profit partners, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship, according to Nancy Hanna, Director of Early Childhood Education for Greenbrier County Schools.

“Greenbrier County Schools is thrilled to have Read Aloud West Virginia as one of its partners,” said Hanna. “Engaged communities mobilized to remove barriers, expand opportunities, and assist parents in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities to serve as full partners in the success of their children are needed to assure student success.”

The Hollowell Foundation honors the philanthropic efforts of Otto and Margaret Ford Hollowell by supporting projects that sustain and advance educational, scientific, literary, recreational and cultural endeavors throughout the Greenbrier Valley.

“The Hollowell Foundation is very pleased to support Read Aloud West Virginia,” said the Foundation’s Executive Director Sherry Ferrell. “Their educational programming is very important to the students in our area and helps us achieve our mission of enhancing the quality of life in Greenbrier County.”

Read Aloud will work throughout the school year to secure additional local funding, which will enable the program to be offered to all grades at Crichton beginning in May 2016.