PNC Bank: Inspiring Young Readers with Words Alive

BY ben hollingshead, WORDS ALIVE VOLUNTEER

“Individually we are one drop. Together we are the ocean” — Ryunosuke Satoro, renowned Japanese poet

PNC Bank, as part of their Grow Up Great® initiative, has a long history of partnering with organizations at the local and national levels to develop resources and programs that help prepare young children for success in school and life. In San Diego, PNC is collaborating with Words Alive’s Family Literacy Program to engage parents to promote positive reading habits at home.

The Family Literacy Program builds on research that shows that involving families in working directly with their children on learning activities at home is the most effective form of engagement. In 2022-23, the program reached 1,411 San Diego families and has a demonstrated track record of positive outcomes. Last program year, we saw 81% growth in the number of families who reported looking at books together every day and a 125% increase in the number of families who spent 20+ minutes looking at books together.

The Family Literacy Program will be able to positively impact additional San Diego families with generous funding from PNC. What is exciting is that PNC’s support is holistic: PNC employees are encouraged to volunteer, and the bank provides them with the time and resources to do just that. PNC employees will spend their time working in partnership with Words Alive as early literacy workshop instructors, support volunteers, delivery drivers for books/materials, and family outreach volunteers to speak with families who are not attending sessions to help troubleshoot, assist with logistics, and improve access.

“PNC Bank is excited to collaborate with Words Alive to prepare children in San Diego County for success in school and in life,” Alan Prohaska, PNC Bank Regional President. “Through volunteerism, financial support and community advocacy, this partnership will truly make a difference for the youngest learners in our community.”

The soon-to-be-transformed Volunteer Collaboration Center Powered by PNC Bank

In November 2023, PNC Bank sponsored Words Alive’s Volunteer Collaboration Center to support volunteer onboarding and training activities for current and prospective volunteers who work directly with children and families, develop curriculum, and support program operations. Currently under construction, the Words Alive Volunteer Collaboration Center Powered by PNC Bank honors the 1,000+ volunteers in San Diego and across the globe that power Words Alive every year.

Words Alive is incredibly grateful for a partner who consistently aims to lean into service and the community. Together we hope to empower families to build strong reading habits to discover the growth and the magic catalyzed by the love for books. 

The Words Alive Reader: September 9, 2020

Welcome to The Words Alive Reader, a regular newsletter keeping you up-to-date with the latest in how we've been connecting children, teens, and families to the power of reading. What have we been up to and how can you help? Read on to find out!

This newsletter, in addition to our blog and social media content, is written by us, a cohort of volunteers! Do you love writing and have an interest in helping Words Alive create this type of content? We'd love your help! Email to learn more.

- Eli and Titiksha, Words Alive Volunteers

Back to School!

A young girl smiles and holds a backpack. Text above the photo reads, “Reagan got her Words Alive backpack! She is so excited!”

As schools begin to re-open, we want to remind you that Words Alive is here to help! Even through unprecedented challenges, we were able to serve 3,280 students and families last school year, and we will continue to do so while adapting our programming into virtual or hybrid models. 

One of our core values is responsiveness. We are dedicated to listening to community needs and developing innovative solutions. Would you like to help us as we journey into new adventures this school year? Sign up for one of our Virtual Best Practices Trainings to learn all the skills you need to volunteer in remote classrooms!

New Story Station Conductors!

Pictures of Sandy, Jim, and Gina reading aloud on Story Station!

We've been hosting Words Alive Story Station on Facebook Live every week day since the pandemic hit to spread joy, and engage our little learners with fun and inspiring stories that the whole family can enjoy. Now, we're happy to welcome new Story Station Conductors to our team!

Volunteers Sandy, Jim, and Gina are positive reading role models to the 10,000+ kids, families, and classrooms that viewed their Story Station videos in just their first week as Conductors. Join us for Story Station at 2 p.m. PT every weekday on Facebook Live: @WordsAliveSD.

Creative Collaborations!

A screenshot from of one of our Zoom trainings!

By the end of September, we will have trained seven community organizations to deliver the three Words Alive core programs! By providing training, curriculum, books, and supplies, we're making sure that organizations like United Way of San Diego, City Heights CDC, Project Concern International, Groundwork San Diego, Oceanside Public Library, and more are able to connect 300 students in their communities to the power of reading.

Another one of our values is collaboration and in these extraordinary times, we need to support one another more than ever. Help support our efforts to train even more organizations by donating today! 

The Life Cycle of a Page Turners Book

An infographic that displays the life cycle of a Page Turners book: from UNKNOWN to UPLIFTING. (1) a stack of books with a question mark; (2) a girl reading (3) a girl typing at her laptop (4) a girl hugging a stack of books.

Since January, our volunteer-led, ever-growing Page Turners community has helped us identify a whopping 28 books that reflect our students' lived experiences to include in Words Alive programming. How does it work?

1. A new and promising book is brought to our attention.

2. Page Turners read and let us know if it's a good fit for our students.

3. Books that receive multiple glowing reviews are passed on to our Curriculum Crew, volunteers who produce high-quality curriculum guides for the book.

4. Curriculum is taught in partner schools and sites, introducing students to empowering, entertaining, and engaging books that they can relate to, igniting their love of reading and setting them up for success!

Want to join the Page Turners community? Sign up here! 

Donate Here to Support Words Alive!

The Words Alive Reader: August 26, 2020

Welcome to The Words Alive Reader, a regular newsletter keeping you up-to-date with the latest in how we've been connecting children, teens, and families to the power of reading. What have we been up to and how can you help? Read on to find out!

This newsletter, in addition to our blog and social media content, is written by us, a cohort of volunteers! Do you love writing and have an interest in helping Words Alive create this type of content? We'd love your help! Email us to learn more.

- Eli and Titiksha, Words Alive Volunteers

Help Us Give Learning Kits to Children & Families!

A woman holds up a backpack in front of a young child.

“Miss Ana is giving me books to learn.”  An 8-year-old participating in Words Alive programs through our partnership with  City Heights CDC and United Way of San Diego scribbled that short, powerful message in their journal. 

Distance learning is providing challenges for teachers, parents, and students in different ways. Before the pandemic, 94% of public school teachers spent their own money on classroom supplies and now, some children are at home attempting to learn with few to no books or supplies around them.

Words Alive is here to help students, parents, and teachers all at the same time! Our Learning Kits are stocked with the tools students need to succeed: pens and pencils, stationary, scissors, and, of course, brand-new books. It takes just $125 to fund one Learning Kit for a child. If you’d like to help level the playing field for a child, donate here!

More Than 200 Page Turners?!

275 book reviews, 1141 hours volunteered, 28 new books added to curriculum, 229 Page Turners, and 177 reviews in progress!

We launched Page Turners last fall so that our Words Alive community could help us find new, diverse books to read with our students. Since then, over 200 volunteers have joined Page Turners, allowing us to add 28 new books to our programming!

Are you interested in joining a community of passionate readers who are helping us read and review titles? Click here to sign up to read a book!

We Could Use Your Help!

Dozens of cardboard boxes with the Words Alive logo.

To meet the changing needs of children, teens, and families because of the pandemic, we are looking for some specific (donated) expertise and thought you might be able to help:

1. Individuals interested in mentoring first-generation college students for the upcoming school year. In addition to general interests, to help meet needs of specific Scholars we're also seeking professionals with work experience in graphic design, the criminal justice system, or based in Portland, OR. 

2. Pro-bono services from legal and public relations firms

3. App developers or website designers

4. Large, vacant storage unit (or garage) on the ground floor where we can accept, sort, and redistribute book donations safely on an ongoing basis 

If you, or someone you know, is able to volunteer or donate in any of these ways let us know!

Join our Mission Marketplace!

A hand holding a heart filled with books above the words “Support small businesses!”

We know that, now more than ever, it's essential to support the small business owners in our community. If you own a business, restaurant, or even an Etsy store you can team up with Words Alive for our Mission Marketplace! We will promote your business throughout the month of October (or another timeframe that works for you!) in exchange for a portion of proceeds being donated to Words Alive in support of our mission. Win-win!

If you'd like to learn more about the Mission Marketplace, email us here!

Donate Here to Support Words Alive!

How the PGA Tour Supports More Than 3,000 Nonprofit Organizations

An image of three attendees of the Women’s Day Event stuffing Kindergarten Readiness Backpacks.

This past January marked the 52nd year that the Farmers Insurance Open was played at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, California. This annual golf tournament brings in some of the largest golf names and attracts over 100,000 spectators. The PGA tour, its players, and the tournaments support more than 3,000 nonprofit organizations in numerous areas of their communities including youth, military, health, environment, education, and disaster relief. The PGA tour is a unique sporting event in the way that it runs similar to a nonprofit: it relies on volunteer support to run most aspects of the event and it is designed to donate 100% of the proceeds. Up through 2018, the PGA tour has generated $2.65 billion for charity, with that number steadily climbing.

Champions for Youth is the primary charitable program of the Century Club of San Diego, which is the administrative organization behind the Farmers Insurance Open. This year, Words Alive was one of the 10 chosen organizations in San Diego to participate in the Champions for Youth program. This means that not only did we embark on our most successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to date (our Board, staff, and volunteers collectively raised over $20,000!), we also had the opportunity to earn bonus funds from a pool of $260,000. In addition, we were able to participate in the Women’s Day Event, Community Day, and we hosted a special Read Aloud session with students from the Doris Miller Elementary School. Participating in these events allowed us to reach out to and interact with members of the community that we haven’t previously been able to.

An image of one of our Read Aloud students from Doris Day Elementary holding up a piece of paper that says “love.”

For the Women’s Day Event, Farmers Insurance employees assisted us in putting together 1,000 Kindergarten Readiness backpacks for the children in our Family Literacy Program. These backpacks included the necessary school supplies for our littlest learners as they enter kindergarten, as well as a brand new book to start building the children’s home library. The event also brought together women in leadership positions across different sectors to discuss the importance of mentorship and their success.

Thanks to our community of supporters and the staff and volunteers who helped us fundraise, Words Alive was able to exceed our goal of raising $60,000. These generous donations will allow us to serve more than 300 students and families this year. Your belief and dedication to building communities who value reading is what enables us to continue giving back to the children and families of San Diego.

If you would like to learn more about Words Alive or keep your eye out for any other upcoming fundraisers, click here.

Sources:

http://together.pgatour.com/stories/18/01/17charity.html

Preventing the Summer Slide

Words Alive was honored to have been a partner in the Readers in the Heights program this summer alongside Community Housing Works, San Diego Workforce Partnership, San Diego County Office of Education, San Diego Council on Literacy, City Heights Public Library, and United Way San Diego. Readers in the Heights was a pilot program aiming to prevent summer slide by aligning and leveraging existing resources to bring summer learning opportunities to the City Heights Community Development Corporation (CHCDC). This year there were 51 children enrolled in the program and 36 children with perfect attendance. The diverse demographics of the children involved in the program is reflected in the varied language spoken at home. Families reported Somali, Amharic, Spanish, Arabic, Kizigua, or Haitian Creole as their primary language spoken at home. During the program the children had the opportunity to take field trips to the library, be read aloud to, create arts and crafts and make new friends. 

Words Alive modeled our Small Group session during the Readers in the Heights program and providing volunteers to read preassigned books to the children followed by a small group book discussion. During the small group, children are divided into groups of 4 and have the opportunity to look more closely at the book. The Words Alive volunteers ask questions that encourage participation and analytical thought while providing a space for every child to share their opinions about the story. The Readers in the Heights facilitators have noticed and reported the positive impact of the program, “The kids look forward to the reading components as the ‘special part’ of the program”. 

After 4 weeks of hard work and fun the participating families graduated from the program. Graduation day celebrated the families for their dedication and time they have invested in their children’s education. We wanted families to walk away feeling appreciated, empowered, and fulfilled.