8
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.

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Page 1: FHCN promotes literacy at well-baby doctor visits D end... · RFL map 6 Donors 7 Book drop boxes Dr. Delima gives out a book in the 8 YEAR-END REPORT 2018 FHCN promotes literacy at

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.

Page 2: FHCN promotes literacy at well-baby doctor visits D end... · RFL map 6 Donors 7 Book drop boxes Dr. Delima gives out a book in the 8 YEAR-END REPORT 2018 FHCN promotes literacy at

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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.