Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program, the leading provider of books and literacy services for children in need in Washington, celebrated a major milestone. The organization distributed its 4-millionth book to Concord International Elementary on June 3.
Author: Lisa Ceniceros
Four-Millionth Book
On June 3, we celebrated a huge milestone: the four-millionth book given away since Page Ahead’s founding in 1990!
We marked the occasion at Concord International Elementary in South Park, where students were receiving their chosen Book Up Summer books to take home for summer reading. The book, All Are Welcome, by Alexandra Penfold and illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman, has a special bookplate identifying it as Page Ahead’s four millionth book and will be added to the Concord school library collection.
Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate! Read more in the Seattle Public Schools newsletter.
17,000 kids had books at home this summer because of supporters like you!
Our fall 2021 newsletter can be browsed below. We’re so grateful to our community of supporters who make this work possible!
Kim Ferse
Page Ahead is pleased to present the 2021 Sarajane Beal Award for Volunteer Excellence to Kim Ferse.
Kim began volunteering for Page Ahead in 2017 and quickly became a valued member of Page Ahead’s core volunteer team. Kim is incredibly dedicated to ensuring kids in need get excited about reading. She has read to classrooms of children as a Story Time volunteer for several years and has helped as a Book Up Summer book fair helper. Over the past year, she has taken on the role of Project Manager for our Book Oasis project.
Kim has been an extraordinary project manager for our Book Oasis project. She’s spent countless hours working with our volunteer architect on the designs of the Oases and coordinating the building and installations of 18 Book Oasis with our volunteer contractors. Kim has also helped us connect with potential hosts to ensure that we have the Book Oases well distributed throughout the Seattle area in the targeted book deserts. She has worked with numerous businesses to help secure donations for the project and oversaw the creation and installation of the beautiful signs with the Book Oasis logo (designed by Page Ahead volunteer Thea Bergstedt). Kim has spent countless hours keeping the team organized with all of our specific duties to get the Oases in the ground and keep them full of books for kids and families to enjoy. The success of the Book Oasis project is in large part due to Kim.
Thank you, Kim! You truly make a difference at Page Ahead!
Empowering little learners with little libraries
“Have you ever come across a Little Free Library? Opening the doors is like discovering a hidden treasure filled with stories to read and new worlds to explore. Page Ahead is helping children experience these joys right in their own neighborhood. Through its Book Oasis project, this literacy organization is building Little Free Libraries just for kids, with a focus on underresourced communities. In doing so, they are working to ensure that all kids, regardless of socioeconomic barriers, have access to books and the opportunity to fall in love with reading at a young age.”
Setting sights on summer learning
“Typically, as the school year comes to a close, many educators’ and parents’ thoughts turn to how they can stem summer slide, or the learning loss associated with students’ being away from school—a key access point for books—during summer vacation. But in the wake of all the disruptions that school districts nationwide have experienced during the Covid-19 crisis, concerns about students’ pandemic learning loss and students’ and educators’ social-emotional well-being have also mounted. As educators, students, and parents gear up to meet these challenges, many publishers, ed tech companies, libraries, and nonprofits are expanding their traditional summer reading offerings and/or creating new tools to help.”
Book Oasis: Kids’ Little Free Libraries
“Award-winning local children’s literacy organization Page Ahead announces “Book Oasis”—a new campaign to build, stock, and maintain Little Free Libraries for kids living in book deserts in the Seattle area. Each Oasis may be located in front of a private home or business—but the books inside belong to everyone.”
Page Ahead wins Library of Congress State Literacy Award
Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program (pageahead.org), the leading provider of books and literacy services for children in need in Washington, has been awarded a 2021 Library of Congress State Literacy Award. One of just seven organizations across the country to earn this prestigious recognition, Page Ahead has been building home libraries for kids for 30 years.
The Library of Congress State Literacy Awards Program is made possible through the generous support of David M. Rubenstein.
Page Ahead was nominated for the honor by the Washington Center for the Book, a partnership between Washington State Library and The Seattle Public Library. “We immediately thought of Page Ahead for this award because of its ongoing work getting books into the hands of children across Washington state, even when there’s a pandemic happening,” said Linda Johns, co-manager of the Washington Center for the Book. “We were impressed with how, in addition to quickly adapting their ongoing programs to the realities of remote learning, Page Ahead also responded to the new hardships for school-age and preschool children during COVID-19 by launching its Book Oasis project to install Little Free Libraries to help fight ‘book deserts’ in low-income urban neighborhoods.”
Easy access to books in childhood is the primary indicator of future academic success[1], so Page Ahead knew it was important get books quickly to neighborhoods hardest hit by school and public library closures during the pandemic. Custom designed for little browsers (including shelves closer to the ground that face book covers out), Page Ahead’s Book Oasis Little Free Libraries will increase book access for kids in those communities on an ongoing basis, as Page Ahead regularly refills them with brand-new titles for babies through young adults.
The State Literacy Award, which comes with a $2,225 grant, also recognizes Page Ahead’s efforts to adapt its existing programs when the pandemic hit. With two months’ notice, Page Ahead took its flagship book fair–based summer reading program, Book Up Summer, entirely remote in spring 2020 when schools shut down. Page Ahead also invested in high-quality video equipment to record virtual story times that are shared with families and classrooms across the state, send story-based craft kits to classrooms, provide remote opportunities for volunteers, and more.
“We are honored to receive this recognition from the Library of Congress,” said Page Ahead executive director Susan Dibble. “We share this award with everyone in our community who has worked with us to put books in kids’ hands during this difficult time, especially our hardworking school partners and our generous supporters who make this work possible.”
About Page Ahead
Guided by the fact that literacy is essential to lifelong success, Page Ahead provides new books and develops reading activities that empower at-risk children. Founded in 1990, Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program has given more than 3.5 million new books to more than 950,000 children through collaborations with schools, social service agencies, preschools, and early childhood programs across Washington. Through their programs, they work to erase the early reading gap for underresourced children before it becomes an “achievement” gap.
Page Ahead has grown from a King County book giveaway project to the leading provider of children’s books and literacy services in the state, currently serving more than 20,000 students in eighteen counties, and a top-ranked early childhood education program nationwide on Charity Navigator.
For additional information, please contact Rebecca Brinbury at rbrinbury@pageahead.org or visit pageahead.org.
[1] M.D.R. Evans, Jonathan Kelley, Joanna Sikora, Donald J. Treiman, “Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations,” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Volume 28, Issue 2, 2010.
Rep. Jayapal celebrates Page Ahead’s Library of Congress State Literacy Award
We received this letter from Representative Pramila Jayapal congratulating Page Ahead on the honor of receiving a Library of Congress State Literacy Award.
Books Uplift: Page Ahead
“Books change lives. Books uplift. Books matter. Books are the foundation on which healthy and happy children succeed in life. And helping to support this critical mission is Page Ahead, a children’s literacy program designed to ‘give kids in need a chance to read.’
I recently had the good fortune to connect with Rebecca Brinbury, the Development Manager at Page Ahead, who shared how her organization’s goal of putting books in the hands of children is improving their chances for success in life. . . .”
Read the rest at Books Uplift.