Foundation Brings Books to Family Literacy ProgramsFebruary 23, 2009 |
Printer-friendly version |
 Five First 5 LA-funded family literacy programs recently received a generous gift — a bookshelf fully stocked with high-quality children's books — donated by the Bring Me A Book Foundation. To celebrate the donation, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corporation's (LTSC) Angelina Preschool in Echo Park earlier this month. Click here to see pictures from the ceremony. Bookshelf donors included CISCO Systems, AT&T, the Norris Foundation and the Hitachi Southern California Regional Community Action Committee. "The children are so excited to be receiving new books from CISCO Systems and the Bring Me a Book Foundation," said Meliza Roa-Arreola, family literacy coordinator at Angelina, adding that the gift showed the donors "commitment to literacy in our community." The ceremony featured representatives from the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), First 5 LA and the Angelina donor CISCO Systems. City and state elected official representatives were also in attendance. "The Bring Me A Book program beautifully supports what the research tells us about the life-long benefits of reading aloud to children in their early years," said Whit Hayslip, Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) interim superintendent of early education. LAUSD's Shenandoah Elementary School, was also a recipient of a bookshelf. "We are especially excited about the program's parent education component, which provides concrete strategies to help them maximize the benefits for their child," Hayslip said. Bring Me A Book Foundation works to inspire reading aloud to children by encouraging parent and teacher involvement. The Bookcase Library Program, part of Bring Me A Book, provides bookcases full of age-appropriate, culturally diverse, hardback books in multiple languages for children in underserved communities. A bookshelf will typically have 30 to 35 books. Eight LACOE sites across the county received a bookshelf from the Foundation. "In addition to the classroom libraries of high quality, hardback children's books, Bring Me A Book Foundation will be working with the LACOE sites to provide our First Teachers read aloud workshops for parents," said Dianne Calvi, president of the Bring Me A Book Foundation. In addition to Angelina and Shenandoah, the other First 5 LA-funded sites to receive a bookshelf were Hawthorne Unified School District's Eucalyptus, Prairie Vista South and Ramona School sites. To learn more about the Bring Me A Book Foundation in Southern California and how to coordinate a donation for your school or program call Barbara Eguyd (562) 493-3009. |
|
