Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Teaching College Readiness on the Navajo Nation

 

We are delighted to add Eran Hornick to our team. Eran is spending the year at Wingate High in Fort Wingate, NM, where he is working with juniors and seniors on college readiness.

Reader to Reader's Blueprint for Success program works with high school students to explore their college options, prepare for standardized tests, and get a head start on their college applications. This multi-faceted program promotes not only preparedness but a deeper understanding of college life, academics, and finding the right school, showing them that college is a real and tangible option.

Monday, March 1, 2021

Reader to Reader Donates $70,000 Worth of Books to Springfield Schools

 AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – The Amherst organization Reader to Reader donated $70,000 worth of books to Springfield Schools according to Founder and Executive Director David Mazor.

The global literacy organization based in Amherst donated over 7,000 new children’s books to the Springfield Public Schools.

“We are very excited to be able to make a donation of this magnitude, with the COVID-19 pandemic limiting children’s in-school time, it is all the more important to get books into their homes,” said Mazor.

The books with a value of over $70,000 are part of the American Girl series and were made possible by American Girl Publishing.

“Springfield Public Schools is thrilled to accept this donation of books that have main characters that are inclusive of different races and cultures. It’s so important for our students to see themselves in books,” said Dan Warwick, Superintendent of Springfield Public Schools.

Each story is told in six compelling books that focus on family, school, holiday, birthday, summer, and winter adventures.

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

American Girl Donates Half a Million Dollars Worth of Books to Reader to Reader


Reader to Reader is delighted to announce that we are receiving a donation of half a million dollars worth of books from American Girl to give out to schools, public libraries and community organizations.

 "A huge thank you American Girl!” David Mazor, Reader to Reader’s Executive Director, said. “This amazingly generous donation will benefit children across the United States. This is such a positive boost for communities that have been hard hit by Covid-19. There will be so many smiles, so much laughter, and a great deal of adventure and sense of wonder because of American Girl’s generosity.”

 

 

#americangirl

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

New Community Library Opens In The Philippines


Despite the challenges posed by typhoons, the Taal volcano eruption, and Covid, a new community library has opened its doors in a village near Lipa, Philippines.

We are delighted to have contributed a wide assortment of books to this wonderful project, and look forward to contributing many more.

The library is the brainchild of retired librarian Peter Mazzei, and  his hard work, and that of so many others, has paid off.

Friday, July 24, 2020

Erla Sagg: A Reader to Reader Success Story!


"I feel like the Reader to Reader - Read, Think, Share Program was the start of something I like to call 'multidimensional  consciousness,'" says Erla Sagg, an alum of our Read, Think, Share program in Navajo, New Mexico. Erla is now membership coordinator for the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC).

Erla is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. Erla comes from the Hardrock and Big Mountain community on the Arizona side of the Navajo Nation. She represents the Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle clan) and is born for the Bitahnii (Folded arms clan). Her maternal grandfathers are of the Naakai Dine'e (wandering people) and paternal grandfathers are the Ashihii (Salt clan).

"Before I was in the Reader to Reader's - Read, Think, Share Program, I was unaware of the world outside of the classroom and the small community of Navajo, New Mexico, Sagg explains. "I had general knowledge on topics like the Holocaust and genocide occurring in Africa, because these were brought up in history class. I was not aware that my own community, and country had and continues to also be a place of genocide and systematic oppression. It wasn't until I read Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie that I had an awakening of reality. This was one of the first books I picked up while in the program, and I remember sitting in the library, realizing that many of us were facing the same thing. Some of us were having identity crises, facing federal coercion, fighting assimilation, unknowingly angered about generational traumas, or simply not doing anything because we had feelings of exclusion from our communities. Aside from the mysterious murders and underlying behavioral health issues the lead character might've had, this book helped me realize that we can be the answer to change. This program showed me that books had the answers to the questions I had about why people were the way they were. Joining the Reader to Reader's program, gave me the ability to critically comprehend societal behaviors and atrocities happening to American Indian people, while many of my peers were interested in the latest shoes and mainstream music.

After attending Navajo Pine High school, I began reading: Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose; God is Red by Vine Deloria Jr.; and Ojibwe Warrior by Dennis Banks. Some of these books were sent to me, from the Reader to Reader Program after leaving Navajo Pine. I can remember feeling the encouragement and motivation when I returned home for the weekend, and I had a big box of books waiting for me. If it wasn't for that box of books that had been provided to me, I feel that I would have slipped slowly into madness. I wanted to become part of the change! At 14 years of age, I wanted to become part of Indigenous survivance.

Today, my bookshelves hold books from authors like Gregory Cajete and Raymond Austin. If it wasn't for this program, I don't know where I would be in life."

After her freshman year at Navajo Pine High School, Erla attended Greyhills Academy High School in Tuba City, Arizona. In May of 2011, she graduated at the top of her class with a 3.98 GPA. Erla received a Presidential Scholarship from Utah State University, where she graduated with an Associates of Science and a Certificate of Completion for the License of Practical Nursing Program. After deciding to change her major from Environmental Chemistry, Erla was accepted to the Native American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico.

In the early parts of 2018, Erla was one of thirteen participants in the Native American Political Leadership Program with George Washington University. She was also one of two Richard M. Milanovich Fellows for this program. In December of 2018, Erla graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Native American Studies with a focus in Leadership and Building Native Nations and a minor in Psychology.

Today, Erla is a graduate student at UNM with a focus in Indigenous Leadership, Self-Determination, and Sustainable Community Building. With a 4.0 GPA, Erla is also working as a Membership Coordinator with the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC) located in Washington, DC. NAIHC is a not-for-profit organization which seeks to effectively and efficiently promote and support American Indians, Alaska Native and native Hawaiians in their self-determined goal to provide culturally relevant and quality affordable housing for native people. Along with eight other team members, Erla provides tribes and Tribally Designated Housing Entities with up-to-date information on grants, trainings, and federal policies such as the Native American Housing and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA). NAIHC also provides advocacy efforts for increased allocation funding like Indian Housing Block Grant, Veterans Affairs, and Indian Community Development Block Grant funding.

Erla's goal is to attend Stanford University Law School. She also wishes to pursue a career deeply focused with federal Indian policy and creating change tribal youth across Indian country.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Children's Books Arrive in Barbados

A shipment of children’s books have arrived in Barbados. The books are a product of a Reader to Reader book drive held by the School Leadership Team of PS 54 - Samuel C. Barnes School in Brooklyn,New York.

Bayleys Primary School is converting an old music/storage room into the school’s first library and we are pleased to lend a hand.

Friday, February 28, 2020

It’s Reader to Reader’s Field Trip Season!


Students from Alfred G. Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, in Springfield, Massachusetts, helped us kick off the start of our annual field trips to Reader to Reader.

Each spring, students that are participating in our Read, Think, Share mentoring program spend a day exploring college life at Amherst College, the home of Reader to Reader.

The students tour the campus, including exploring the Beneski Museum of Natural History, one of New England's largest natural history museums.

They are escorted on their campus tour by their Read, Think, Share college student reading mentors.

A fun day is had by all.