Sharon Litvinoff

Page Ahead is pleased to present the 2024 Sarajane Beal Award for Volunteer Excellence to Sharon Litvinoff.

Sharon began volunteering for Page Ahead in May of 2019 as a book fair helper with Book Up Summer at West Seattle. Over the years she has helped in the office, at the Mariner’s Game collecting donations, and reading with students at our reading events. She even brings her husband Marc along to join in on the fun!

In December of 2019, Sharon joined our Program Committee and it is with this group that she has made a significant impact. The Program Committee helps with all 3 of Page Ahead’s programs, BUS, ST, and SL. The group meets monthly and also puts in hours of homework with researching books for our programs. Most of the time is spent with choosing books for Story Leaders and creating all the resources for the teachers and families. This is where Sharon’s skills with online research really shine!

Sharon finds the most amazing crafts, activities, songs, and snack ideas to perfectly fit the theme of the Story Leaders books. For example, she has found out how to create an elephant shaped snack using bread, cucumbers, olives, and a banana. Another specialty is finding crafts that use empty toilet paper tubes, including binoculars, kittens, rain drop stamps, and fish. 

Sharon has put her research skills to extra use this year in finding new book vendors for both Book Up Summer and Story Leaders. Sharon was able to connect with Mantra Lingua, our book vendor which provided books in world languages for both Book Up Summer and Story Leaders. It was a big deal this year to be able to offer students books in Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Somali. It’s because of Sharon’s research that we were able to provide these new book choices! Another new book vendor that Sharon found for Story Leaders has been able to provide a huge discount on our selected titles for this coming school year. This gives Page Ahead about a 30% savings in our book expenses for the Story Leaders program!

Sharon is also great at spreading the word about Page Ahead to other community groups that she is a part of to increase both potential volunteers and donors for us. She organized an info session with her Newcomers group where they learned all about Page Ahead from Susan. Several members of the group then volunteered together to help at a BUS shift at West Seattle Elementary. They helped some Kindergartners and 1^st graders select their 12 books for summer reading.

Sharon even took the plunge to become a Table Captain at our annual fundraising luncheon. She invited friends and family and join her table and they raised $5,386! She also created the most thoughtful name cards for her table guests with a picture from their favorite children’s book. I [Lisa] still have mine with a picture of Biscuit Goes to School.

Sharon’s passion for Page Ahead and her many hours of service to all of our programs, helps us to support so many schools and children with books and the joy of reading.

Thank you, Sharon! You truly make a difference at Page Ahead!

See previous winners of this award here.