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D r. Patricia Delima knows how
important reading is for young
children. When the Academy of
Pediatrics added an emphasis on reading
to young children, she brought the Reach
Out and Read national program to the
Family Health Care Network clinic in Por-
terville.
Now starting at the six-month well-baby
exam, the clinic pediatricians give out
books to each child and explain to the
parents how reading stimulates the brain.
Many of the books are donated by Read
for Life.
“Our population is mostly Hispanic and
a lot are illiterate, even in their own lan-
guage,” said Dr. Delima. “They are usually
surprised when I emphasize reading. They
say they can’t read. I tell them they can
just talk about the pictures. The most
important thing is the baby hears your
voice, looks at the pictures and uses all
his senses.”
Dr. Delima attended the talk by lan-
guage development expert Alison Go-
pnik, which was hosted by Read for Life
in 2012, and was inspired.
“It was so enlightening. She talked
about the importance of verbalizing
everything you do while you’re with
your child.” The more words they hear, the
better.
All 27 FHCN clinics in Tulare and Kings
counties have reading corners for children,
which are stocked with books by RFL. Dr.
Delima says they always need more devel-
opmentally-appropriate books.
“Giving out books is so important for par-
ents,” she said. “The first year is the most
important.”
Read for Life works toward its goal of providing books to
children and break-ing the cycle of illit-eracy through early
intervention, direct service projects and community awareness.
Inside this report
Books for Babies 2
Shelter Buddies 3
Success story 4
Where your donations go
5
RFL map 6
Donors 7
Book drop boxes 8
YEAR-END REPORT
2018
FHCN promotes literacy at well-baby doctor visits
What is this bear reading?
See page 2
Dr. Delima gives out a book in the
“dinosaur” room at the Porterville clinic.
I n the last two years, Read for Life has been
able to double the
number of Books for Babies packets it gives out, thanks
to the 2017 fund raiser when Dr. Dana Suskind
came to speak on children’s brain development. Plus
those packets are going to
where they are most need-ed.
Packets are now distribut-ed to childbirth classes at
Family Health Center Net-
work in Visalia and Porter-ville as well as to new par-
ents during postpartum re-assessments by FHCN
health coaches. “We’re now reaching fam-
ilies that might not know
about the importance of
reading,” said Anne Ful-mer, Books for Babies
chair. “Knowing our ma-
terials are going to homes where we might
be able to break the cy-cle of illiteracy is im-
portant to us. That’s the purpose of RFL.”
The FHCN coaches
appreciate having the packets to give out,
which are available in English and Spanish.
One-on-one they can ex-
plain to parents the im-portance of reading the
board book, talk about the songs in the songbook, and
show the cards that explain development of babies at
each age level.
For each level, the devel-
opmental cards begin by
saying, “Make reading a part of every day.”
“Our purpose is for fu-ture and new parents to
learn how critical it is for them to begin reading to
their babies, even before
they are born,” said Anne.
Read for Life will have a “Story Time” tree in this year’s Visalia Christmas Tree Auction, thanks
to the Indian Women’s Association (IWA).
The group is decorating the tree with charac-ters from popular Christmas books, such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It also will include a teddy bear
reading a book in a kid’s size rocking chair. The tree will be displayed in the lobby of the
Comfort Inn Suites Downtown and then moved to
the Convention Center for the auction on Dec. 7. Formed in January 2017, IWA consists of wom-
en from Southeast Asia. Their goal is to reach out to destitute children, families and individuals
within our community.
RFL awards annual literacy scholarship
Books for Babies: Breaking the cycle of illiteracy
Page 2
“At the Pixley
Medical Clinic when I
tell the kids they get
to have a book of
their own to take
home, their eyes just
light up! Many of
them are waiting for
me and can hardly
contain their
excitement. The
parents are so
grateful that their
child gets a book of
their own.”
Anne Fulmer, board member
Bear’s ‘Story Time’ for Christmas
Congratulations to
Loveleen Kahlon from Redwood High
School, who received this year’s $500
“Pass the Word”
scholarship for her 225 hours of literacy. She worked
with students throughout Tulare County to send 100 books to chil-
dren who had no books in north-ern India, the birthplace of her
parents.
Read for Life annually awards the scholarship to an outstanding
Tulare County high school senior who has served our community by
volunteering to promote literacy.
The application is on Read for Life’s website: www.readforlife.
org and is due to Read for Life by Friday, April 5, 2019. For infor-
mation call Susan Graves at 559 972-6757.
RFL out in the community Board member Karen Vanni hosts a Read For
Life booth at the Porterville Chamber of Com-merce Business Expo each year. She also gave
out 100 books at the city’s Dia del Niños.
RFL talked to lots of families and gave out books and “how to read to your child” pam-
phlets at the Book Festival hosted by Leadership Visalia at the Visalia library on April 14.
R ead for Life’s Shelter Bud-dies program has returned
for the 2018-19 school year.
The program, now in its third year, gives second- and third-graders from
four Visalia elementary schools an enhanced, expanded experience of
improving their reading skills while helping shelter animals find their for-
ever homes.
This year’s program includes stu-dents from ProYouth after-school
sites at Highland, Crowley, Mountain View and Washington elementary
schools. About 25 students at each
site take the Tulare County-run Loop Bus on six consecutive Tuesdays to
the Visalia Animal Care Center to read aloud to animals up for adop-
tion. Reading to the dogs helps to bring
comfort to and reduce the anxiety of
shelter animals, and it nurtures em-pathy in children while improving
their ability to read. In addition, ProYouth Program Co-
ordinator Kristina Seals developed a
Pathway curriculum to enhance their
awareness of humane education beyond the Shelter. Read for Life provides books to
each ProYouth site, and the books are given
to the Shelter Buddies on their last visit to continue to emphasize the importance of
reading every day. “Watching Shelter Buddies in action, you
see their intense and dedicated sense of purpose to help these dogs and giving their
best efforts to read aloud for a full hour,”
said Kristina Seals. “Reading aloud for a full hour is tiring, but these children do it be-
cause they feel it matters. In turn, they feel like they matter.”
When kindergarten teacher Tracy Van Meter
discovered the books had
been stolen from her class-room at Manual Hernandez
Class is overwhelmed with donations when books are stolen
Shelter Buddies improve literacy by reading to animals
Page 3
“Thank you for the
wonderful donation
of books. Your gener-
osity allows us to help
our clients as they are
working to build
physical and emo-
tional safety and find
hope again.”
Family Services Visalia
Students learn
compassion while reading
to animals.
School in Visalia, Read for
Life jumped into action and donated a big bag of
books. And we weren’t the only ones who donated.
“We had so many books
donated, I had to go buy another bookshelf,” Mrs.
Van Meter said. As this picture shows, the
kids were overjoyed.
“Reading is the founda-tion of everything. It all
starts with kindergarten, recognizing the letters and
words. And you need a lot of books because the kids
don’t want to read the
same ones over and over. They like to trade books.”
Mrs. Van Meter was es-pecially happy to receive
non-fiction books with lots
of pictures, which gives added learning opportuni-
ties to the children.
J ulia Summer See-Teran is a real suc-cess story, and Read for Life is proud
to have been part of her success—
although she had the right spirit and atti-tude to succeed from the start.
Julia became pregnant in her sophomore year of high school and transferred to Visa-
lia Charter Independent Studies (VCIS) her junior year, where she took child develop-
ment classes and received books from RFL.
She completed her last two years in one year with a newborn son. She had very little
parental support but was determined to be the best mom, student and individual. She
moved to Mesa, Arizona after high school
and received her A.A. from Mesa Communi-ty College at the age of 18.
Her goal is to have her doctorate by the age of 25. Even though she has been busy
at school, she spends lots of quality time with Kaleb. She is driven, but even more
driven since she had her son!
What were your first thoughts when
you got pregnant? Teen pregnancy is very common in Tulare
County, and I didn’t think I would be one of
those statistics. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t think anything negative.
All I said was, “You can do this. There are so many people in the world in the same
position as you.”
What motivated you to finish high
school a year early and move to Arizo-na?
My boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, was having trouble finding a job.
He didn’t have a stable home or support
that he needed, but his family had a job for him in Arizona. I decided to finish school as
soon as possible so we could move there as a family and I could attend college there.
So many pregnant teens never finish school. What was different for you?
Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about sup-porting my child. I had help from family,
and VCIS provided day care. My main sup-port was Ann Broderson, my teacher, men-
tor and friend at VCIS [Ann is also president
of RFL]. She made me realize that I wasn't alone. She showed me that if I work hard, I
will be acknowledged one way or an-other. Ann showed me how much good
there is in a person and inspired me to
give back one day. She even went out of her way to give my husband and me
the experience of prom. She took me to get a dress, rented a tux for my hus-
band and even paid for our tickets. Overall, she has made a huge impact
on my life.
How were the RFL books helpful?
I didn’t want to ask my family for more than the basics for my son, so the
books were helpful. RFL also informed
me that reading is so critical to a child’s
development, which I wouldn’t have
known since I didn’t have parents read to me when I was younger.
What is your next goal?
I am now a junior in college attending Grand Canyon University and scheduled
to graduate February 2020 with my
bachelors of science in psychology. Af-ter that I plan on attending Midwestern
University or Argosy University in Arizo-na for the doctor of psychology (PsyD)
degree.
Success story: Teen parent learns importance of reading
Page 4
We can never
underestimate the
impact a book has
on a child, family
and community. “I
had never read out
loud to my baby
before,” said teen
parent Andrea,
who was reading to
her 2-month-old
son, Santiago.
Andrea attends
Visalia Charter
Independent
Studies, where teen
parents consistently
read to their
children and
receive books from
RFL.
Julia and son Kaleb
Books for Kids Books for Kids delivered
over 17,000 books to chil-
dren throughout Tulare
County. Books were put in
the hands of children and
their families four different
times this year at 42 differ-
ent locations.
Every clinic within the
Kaweah Delta Health Care
District and every site with-
in the Family Health Care
Network received new and
gently used books, made
available during health care
appointments and in book
nooks in waiting rooms.
Books were also delivered
to Valley Children’s Hospi-
tal, battered women’s shel-
ters, homeless shelters,
Mothering Heights, Grand-
mother’s House in Tulare,
and many other locations
throughout the county.
This year Visalia Unified
School District elementary
schools donated thousands
of books from school librar-
ies undergoing renova-
tions. Staff members, retir-
ing teachers and teachers
moving to new rooms also
donated hundreds of
books.
For more information,
call Becky Richert at 559
471-6434, Katie Mann at
559 972-0986 or Sue Sand-
ers at 559 909-1754.
Teen Parenting & Head Start Read for Life distributed
over 3,200 English and
Bilingual books to all 20 Head Start sites in Tulare
County and eight teen par-enting programs. Each
child received three new
book distributions spread out during the 2017-18
school year. Parent presentations ex-
plained the importance of
reading aloud, conversa-tion, and singing to chil-
dren to help parents en-
hance language building skills for their children.
For more information,
call Deborah Lagomarsino at 559 625-3433.
Preschool Programs Yearly, Read for Life pro-
vides 1,300 new Bilingual
and English board books to seven Tulare County pre-
school programs, as well as reading support through
parent presentations. The preschool directors have
seen an increase in paren-
tal involvement due to em-phasizing the parents’ and
caregivers’ role in the im-portance of building early
literacy awareness and in-
creasing vocabulary. RFL recently received a
generous and substantial one-of-a-kind donation of
3-D hands-on cloth “props” and puppets. Our directors
state that by using these
manipulatives “storytelling and reading come alive!”
For more information, call Mimi Boyd at 559 625-
1341 or Rose Rains at 559
920-3668. Books for Babies Books for Babies gave out over 1,000 packets to
new and expectant parents
throughout Tulare County. The packets include a
board book, a songbook and developmental cards.
Packets were distributed
to programs in Visalia, Por-terville, Strathmore, Farm-
ersville, Tipton, Poplar, Alpaugh, Woodlake and
Pixley. For more information,
call Anne Fulmer at 559
303-4751.
Read for Life continued to be
involved with
Lea Conmigo (Read with Me)
in Farmersville in 2018. The
previous year, the group
opened a brand
new library, the first in Farmersville in over 10 years. This year they increased the library hours, held litera-
cy activities (here with Clifford the Dog), and expanded the Little Free Library boxes in neighborhoods.
In November businesses were given the opportunity
to sponsor shelves in the library to help expand commu-nity services and purchase more books. Next year, Lea
Conmigo will establish reading corners at sports games, encouraging parent involvement to get kids to read.
Promoting literacy in Farmersville
Read for Life programs: Where your donations go
Page 5
“We appreciate
all our volunteers
who help clean
and sort books for
each specific site
and the donors
who help ensure a
book gets into the
hands of each
child in all our
programs.”
Deborah Lagomarsino,
board member
Read for Life was started in 1989 by five local women concerned about the low
literacy rate in Tulare County. They began by working with a few teen parenting
programs and now supply books and literacy information to over 90 sites. Thank
you to Tamara Lagomarsino for creating this map.
Where are your book donations distributed?
Page 6
our literacy message. Every time RFL has
brought in a national
speaker, Rotary has stepped up as a sponsor.
They also donate $500 annually for RFL’s Pass
the Word Scholarship, which goes to a high
school senior who has
contributed time outside of the classroom on a lit-
eracy project.
Dan & Cydney Oster, Ed & Becky Richert, Joy and Rich
Sakai, San Joaquin Valley
College, Steve & Sue Sand-ers, Eric & Kathy Shannon,
Wendy & Stan Simpson
$100 and more
Thomas & Joan Akin, Mark Avedian, Donna Bailey, Lynn
& Gerry Beckers, Charlene Blunt, George & Maryann
Brannan, Wallace & Darlene Byars, Tony & Melanie Cas-
ares, Dena & Richard
Cochran, John Colbert & Nan Mensinga, Phyllis Coring,
Rita Crandall, Chuck & Debra Dichiera, Marilyn T. Doe,
James & Dorothy Downing,
Joanne Dudley, Carol Enns, Dave Franey—Franey's Floor
Covering, Peter & Ruth Golombek, Carole & John
Greening, Robert & Laurie Hart, Janice Helgeson, Mari-
on Hoffman, Mimi Hoffman,
Constance & Don Kellerhals, Karen Land, Susan & Robert
Machado, Patricia Moore, Brian & Judy Newton, Clifton
& Barbara Paregien, Sharon
Peck, Diane Post, Rosalie Powell, Rose & Dale Rains,
Barbara & Thomas Rayner, John Redden, Steve & Car-
$5,000 and more The Belay Foundation, Ann
B. Reimers Charitable Edu-
cation Foundation
$1000 and more AGSOURCE Services—
Lagomarsino Group, Creek Rock Ventures, Cliff & Di-
ane Dunbar, Dwelle Family
Foundation, Williams, Brodersen, Pritchett &
Burke, Sharon Woolman
$500 and more
Carol Brown, County Cen-ter Community Support
Assn, Susan & Jody Graves, Robert & Anne
Havard, Holly Jones—
Valley Yoga, Fred & Debo-rah Lagomarsino, Paloma
Development, Armida & Guadalupe Picon, George &
Carol Pilling, Visalia County Center Rotary Club
$250 and more Matt Bakke, Michael & Mimi
Boyd, Karen Carlstrom, Jeff Carr, Central Valley Com-
munity Bank, Congregation
B'Nai David, Bill & Cindy Delain, Friends of Three
Rivers Library, Mark & Anne Fulmer, Britt & Judy
Fussel, Bill & Katie Mann,
mella Renton, Marla & Ed Reyes, Angie Rizzo, Myron &
Debbie Sheklian, Steve &
Ruth Sibbett, Tricia & Barry Smith, Drew & Leslie
Sorenson, Mike & Vickie Torres, Cassie L. Travo, Tula-
re County Panhellenic Confer-ence Inc., Denise Williams
Other generous donors Aaron & Norma Lee Avedian,
Joan Avedian, Laurel Barton, Sandy & Paul Bennett, Tina
Blimling, John & Susan Book-
er, Al & Jo Anne Branco, Do-ris Bratsch, Marsha Brooks-
Smith, Marguerite Brown, Laurie & Dennis Buhler, Gary
& Marilyn Cascarano, Janis &
David Christopher, Patti Fiormonte, Elaine Geeting,
Roberta Hagopian, C. Richard & Donna Hamilton, John &
Pat Hansen, Gina Haycock, Susan Kreps, Paula Kuklinski,
Law Office of James Preston,
Nancy Loliva, Wayne & Sally Lovejoy, Sam & Joyanne
Lukes, Alan & Dorothy Malka-sian, Donna Mekeel, David &
Betty Miller, Charlene Minetti,
Chris & Jennifer Morgan, Ma-rie & Milton Morrison, Sandra
J O'Dell, Phyllis Ogden, Mar-sha & Tom Peltzer, Debra
Thank you to our 2018 donors—helping to increase the literacy rate
Page 7
V isalia County Center
Rotary was one of Read for Life’s first
supporters, donating $3,000 in seed money 29 years
ago.
Over the years they have helped us in numerous
ways, including donating a conference table for our
office and sponsoring the mural on Mineral King Ave-
nue to help communicate
County Center Rotary continues to support RFL
Phillips, Larry & Susan
Poplack, Dru Quesnoy, Renaissance Charitable
Fund, Judy Russ, Diane Salazar, Edith Schroeder,
Rich & Andrea Sigmund,
Phillip & Toni Simons, Renella and Gregory
Smith, John and Christi-na Sundstrom, Janet
Sward, Gale Thomas, John & Cathy Tienken,
Carol & Stanley Trapp,
Claudine Velosa
We were honored
when VCCR selected RFL as their “Fund the
Need” recipient at their annual Rotary Auction
in 2017. We have defi-
nitely benefited from Visalia County Center
Rotary's commitment to Read for Life which in
turn helps Tulare Coun-ty families.
Each year RFL pro-
vides books to special projects. RFL continues
to provide books for Children's Path to Litera-
cy in Woodlake and the
local Kids 4 Christmas project. This year books
also were given to the Migrant Farmworker
Women’s Conference. If your organization
would like books to give
to young children, please fill out the Request for
Support form on our website:
www.readforlife.org.
Special projects
Thank you to the City
of Visalia Non-Profit grant which provided
$6,500 to buy books.
Thank you to ProYouth
for their $2,000 dona-
tion to support Shelter Buddies.
P.O. Box 3342 Visalia, CA 93278 www.readforlife.org
Board Members
Ann Broderson, President Teenage Parenting
Rose Rains, Vice-President Preschool Program
Katie Mann, Secretary, Books for Kids
Cydney Oster, Treasurer
Anne Fulmer, Books for Babies
Tulsi Gupta, Christmas Tree Auction
Deborah Lagomarsino, Teenage Parenting
Nancy Loliva, Public Relations, Shelter Buddies
Beth McAuliff, Volunteer Coordinator
Donna Orozco, Newsletter
Teresa Ramos
Becky Richert, Books for Kids
Deborah Sierra, Membership
Karen Vanni, Southern Tulare County Coordinator
Retired Board Members
George Pilling, Book Purchaser
Mimi Boyd, Corresponding Secretary, Preschool Program
Rita Peña, Woodlake Liaison
Susan Graves
Cyndy McBee
Learn more about us on the web www.readforlife.org
Email us at [email protected]
Like us on Facebook!
Drop boxes make it easy to donate books to RFL
G reenhouse Montessori Pre-
school in Visalia uses its
Read for Life book drop box
to donate many books each year, as
this picture shows.
“The kids like it, and the parents like
it too,” said co-owner Nina Clancy.
“They can give away their extra chil-
dren’s books and know they’re going to
a good place.”
Co-owner Anne Hoffman believes the
more books children can have the bet-
ter. “It’s more than just reading; it’s
snuggling and talking about the pic-
tures.”
Greenhouse has a Scholastic book
fair each winter. With the book credits
the preschool earns from parents buy-
ing books, the school is able to donate
extra books to RFL.
Gently used and new children’s books
can be donated at drop boxes located at
the RFL office, 132 N. Conyer in Visalia,
St. Paul’s School on Goshen Avenue, Por-
terville Unified School District and
ImagineU Children’s Museum.