Rion Dudley

Page Ahead is proud to present the Sarajane Beal Award for Volunteer Excellence to Rion Dudley.

Rion Dudley accepts his award at the volunteer celebration at Tutta Bella Pizzeria.

A volunteer for Page Ahead since 2013, Rion quickly became an integral part of Page Ahead’s Story Time program. This program places trained volunteers in prek–kindergarten classrooms to read to children, sing songs, and complete a craft. The children take great delight in working on their craft project, and Rion plays an important role in that by keeping the craft section fully stocked. If you’ve ever prepared materials for children’s crafts, you know what a big job this is! It’s always fun to walk by Rion and his co-volunteer Barbara and hear them discussing with great seriousness the state of the tongues for the frog craft or fire for the dragon craft. A former professor at Cornish College of the Arts, Rion has put his artistic side to work for Page Ahead by designing holiday cards and crafts.

Thank you, Rion, for your commitment to Page Ahead and the children we serve!

Summer reading program helps fill the gaps for Washington kids

Page Ahead is a nonprofit that focuses on closing the literacy achievement gap for kids in majority low-income communities across Washington by building home libraries and providing reading resources. They are a major partner of Seattle Public Schools, and as the school year ended last month, they gave thousands of K–2 kids in Seattle (and across the state) 12 free books each for summer reading through their Book Up Summer program. With the COVID-19 school closures exacerbating existing inequities for our students, having reading material at home is more crucial than ever.”

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