READ/San Diego Receives ICMA Award
READ/San Diego Receives ICMA Award
The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) will present its 1998 Program Excellence Award to the San Diego Public Library's adult literacy program, READ/San Diego, in Orlando, Florida, this coming October. IMCA's Awards for Program Excellence, founded in 1968, are presented to local governments and their chief administrators in recognition of creative and successful city/county programs. Divided into two categories (communities over 20,000 and communities under 20,000), award winners must have demonstrated tangible results. READ/San Diego was awarded the 1998 Award for Programs for the Disadvantaged in the Memory of Carolyn Keane for bringing individualizedliteracy instruction to the diverse neighborhoods of San Diego.
A new promotion from Starbucks will benefit family literacy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every time Mark McGuire hits a home run in any of the 7 games he plays against the Giants at 3COM Park in San Francisco, $2,500 will be donated by the Starbucks Foundation to San Francisco Bay Area Families For Literacy (FFL) programs.
FFL is a state-wide, state-funded, public library based family literacy initiative which is now in its tenth year. This program emphasizes the importance of the parent and/or primary caregiver in the literacy development of the pre-school child. FFL programs address the needs of families most "at risk," those of adults with limited literacy skills. FFL is based on the premise that the parent is the child's first and most important teacher and that early intervention is more efficient and cost effective than later remediation. 59 public library jurisdictions in California currently have FFL programs.
Project Read/North San Mateo County was nominated by the National Institute for Literacy and was one of 20 programs selected to participate in Vice President Al Gore's Skills for the 21st Century Summit as a program demonstrating Best Practices in adult literacy. Leslie Shelton, former Director of Project Read, and Holly Fulgrum-Nutters the present Director, both attended the Summit along with adult learner Enrique Ramirez.
Enrique was one of fifteen learners selected as a student who has met with success. He met with personally with the Vice President to discuss Gore's literacy agenda. He spoke eloquently to the entire group about his experiences at Project Read and how learning has impacted his career path. Enrique is an employee/owner with United Airlines and has recently been promoted.
This Summit was held in Washington, DC in January of this year. The summit highlighted the importance of developing a national consciousness that includes the concept of lifelong learning.
