Diana Konaszewski Ray

Page Ahead is proud to present the Sarajane Beal Award for Volunteer Excellence to Diana Konaszewski Ray.

As a Story Time volunteer, Diana has brought tremendous joy to her PreK class in Port Townsend, even going so far as to make special appearances in her Pete the Cat costume. Diana’s enthusiasm as she reads to the children is a sight to behold; big-hearted, she always takes the time to make sure each small hand is seen and each little voice is heard and responded to.

In addition to sharing her love of reading with children, Diana has made other significant contributions to our Story Time program by:

• Putting her considerable thrift-shopping skills to use to stock our prop area with fun and interesting items.
• Created personalized questions for each of our 180+ Story Time books. This has enabled fellow Story Time volunteers to ask their students more questions during their sessions about what was happening in the story, a technique called Dialogic Reading. This technique helps to engage the students with print and to become active participants rather than passive listeners. Diana eagerly took this huge and daunting task on and completed it without batting an eye.

Thank you, Diana, for all you do in helping Page Ahead create a love of reading among the children of Washington state; we are grateful for you!