Early literacy event exposes business people to quality child care settings
On an early Wednesday morning in April, 23 volunteers lined up to get coffee and food at Parker and Otis, a chic café near Brightleaf Square, before settling in for a quick crash course on early literacy practices and a chance to test those newfound skills with 3 and 4-year-olds.
“This is going to be a blast!,” said Linda Wengler, a volunteer with Channel Advisor, who was eyeing the Clifford books stacked on the presentation table. “I love Clifford. I can’t wait to read this one to the kids.”
That’s what Durham’s Partnership for Children and the Volunteer Center of Durham’s joint-volunteer initiative was all about April 16—reading to the kids.
To celebrate Week of the Young Child, the two organizations launched Partnering for Early Literacy Day, which connected 23 volunteers from Credit Suisse, Channel Advisor, Measurement Inc. and Duke University with eight high quality child care facilities. “Anything we can do to help raise awareness and promote the importance of reading to young children is a worthwhile endeavor,” said Stephen Raburn, Executive Director at the Volunteer Center of Durham.
The Volunteer Center of Durham supplied the volunteers and Durham’s Partnership for Children organized the program and the high quality child care facilites.
Equipped with reading tips from the early literacy presentation, Clifford’s School Days Treasury and directions to the respective child care sites, the volunteers were eager to meet their classrooms.
Each child read to that morning also received two Clifford books to take home from the Better Business Bureau Educational Foundation. Jeff Wray, a board member with the foundation, said the initiative was a perfect fit with the Better Business Bureu’s focus to support literacy efforts with young children, youth and their families.
“This was an awesome experience,” said Lisa Lyon, co-director of Hope Valley Preschool, a five-star center. “It’s rare that we get people from the outside community to come in and interact with the children.”
Two centers with the largest number of children participating received a special visit from Clifford himself thanks to a donated costume from Barnes and Noble - Southpoint.
Marsha Basloe, Executive Director of the Partnership, said the visit to the child care centers were opportunities to reframe education from K-12 to B-12 (birth to 12th grade). “It was an eye-opening experience for many of the volunteers to see the importance of early literacy and its impact on children’s school readiness.”
