June 26, 2020
Summer Updates with Page Ahead
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22,000 students have gone home with 12 brand new books for their home library after participating in Book Up Summer! We could not have done this without the support from all of our volunteers. Over 160 volunteers spent their time (560 hours!) helping at every single step of the process, from doing inventory to helping the kids put their nameplate stickers inside each of their books. We are so incredibly grateful for everyone who spent their time with us and the students. Book Up Summer was possible thanks to every one of you! Kids across Washington can now spend the summer reading to their heart’s content.
This year, Book Up Summer was in 122 different schools, where students selected 283,000 books that they took home to build their home libraries.
Book Up Summer helps prevent the summer slide. The summer slide refers to students who lose some of the skills they learned and worked on over their summer vacation. When students go home with 12 brand new books, that they have self-selected, they will be able to practice and work on reading in a way that is exciting and enjoyable to them.
Thank you so much to our partners at First Tech Federal Credit Union for supporting Page Ahead with another grant this year! Their support is instrumental in operating our programs, such as Book Up Summer, and getting books to all kids who need them!
We are so grateful for the continued partnership and support of First Tech and all that they do to create greater access to early childhood literacy for all.
Happy Summer Vacation! If you have a young reader in your life, we encourage you to join us at the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Gardens at the Ballard Locks for a summer story time session!
Story Times will take place from June 27th – August 29th every Thursday from 11am – 12pm. We hope to see you there!
This month, the 5th graders at Bryant Elementary in north Seattle hosted a book drive for us! The theme of their book drive was “We Care, We Share” and they encouraged other students and their community to donate to Page Ahead. And what a job they did! Check out this creative video they recorded to educate their school community. Thanks to these amazing efforts, they were able to collect and donate nearly 400 books and $440!
We are so excited to see the next generation of readers advocate for their peers through caring and sharing! Thank you Bryant Hawks for helping your peers get brand new books.
Here’s what Diane Koontz, Page Ahead’s longest serving volunteer has to say about Life Safari by John Strelecky, a book she just recently finished after taking a month long safari trip to the African continent:
“This short book was a wonderful read. I have been entranced with the sights, the people and the landscapes of Africa since I got to go on safari there. Life Safari is about Jack, a young man struggling to find his place in life, who goes on a journey to Africa. As he meets people along the way and experiences the beauty of the land and the wildlife he finds both physical and mental changes transforming his view of himself and the world. He travels by foot with a wise African woman named Ma Ma Gombe who is on a journey of her own. She is seeking a fabled destination she was told of as a child—’a place where you can see the earth be born, and then watch the world go to sleep, a place so beautiful that words cannot describe it.’
I found this story to be very satisfying…a reminder that yes, you can find more quiet and joy and potential even in our current hustle-bustle world.”
June 26, 2020
Page Ahead distributed our four-millionth book at Concord International Elementary in West Seattle!
June 3, 2022
It's great way for companies or groups to give back.
October 10, 2022