The Words Alive Reader: March 17, 2022

Welcome to the Words Alive Reader, our newsletter keeping you up-to-date with the latest in how we’ve been connecting children, teens, and families to the power of reading. We have exciting new stories and opportunities to share as we continue our celebration of National Reading Month!​​​​​​​

Thank You Bentivoglio Family Fund!

We are thrilled to share Words Alive recently received an astounding $200,000 gift from the Bentivoglio Family Fund - the single largest donation ever received by Words Alive! We are humbled by such an investment in our work to uplift children, teens, and families through the power of reading!

​​​​​​​In partnership with local Head Start, Boys & Girls Clubs, elementary and high schools, and more than 1,000 volunteers all over the world, this historic gift will help Words Alive reach more than 4,500 students and families throughout San Diego this school year. To learn more about this gift, click here.

Reading with Teens at the Jackie Robinson YMCA

This week, Words Alive is launching new spring book clubs for teens at the Jackie Robinson YMCA in collaboration with United Way, San Diego Foundation, and amazing community partners. We are training YMCA leaders to run our Adolescent Book Group for students in the Lincoln High School cluster, starting with the award-winning graphic novel, Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka.

Are you an experienced or past ABG volunteer? We would love your help training and coaching partners to facilitate the program. Email us at [email protected] if you're interested!

New Books and Learning Kits for 2,400 Students

This week 2,460 students at 15 partner schools throughout San Diego will be receiving a new hardcover book - Bruce's Big Storm by Ryan T. Higgins - and a learning kit for each student with the supplies to make their own cloud viewer!

This project is thanks to an amazing collaboration: books were donated by the San Diego Council on Literacy and were paired with a learning kit imagined by the Fleet Science Center, supported by Hunter Industries, and compiled by UCSD's Center for Student Involvement.

Check it out and read along! Click here to download the learning kit and family guide (available in 8 languages). You can find the book at your local library.

2021 Volunteer Trends

Words Alive's volunteers are amazing! Our 2021 Volunteer Round Up report is hot off the presses with incredible data about the community who supports our work!

Did you know:

• 58% of Words Alive's volunteers are under the age of 25

• 35% of our volunteers identify as Asian

• 20% of our volunteers have a graduate degree

• 6% of our volunteers are active-duty military or veterans

Representation matters at Words Alive, and we are dedicated to reflecting our community's lived experiences in everything we do. This report highlights our evolving demographic data on our volunteer base's ever-changing gender, racial, educational diversity and more.

Check it out here to learn more about our 2021 volunteer trends.

Thank you EY!

In a celebration of service, 225 EY employees from around the world participated in Words Alive projects around Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year! We'd like to thank our corporate partner, EY, for their commitment to empowering communities through reading!

Do you have a group of 25+ people and/or might be interested in sponsoring a service day for your team? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 858-274-9673. We'd love to talk about custom group service projects and/or opportunities to host service events at your office.

RSVP For Volunteer Appreciation Celebration

Register at our Zoom link to attend Volunteer Appreciation Celebration!

You are cordially invited to our 13th annual Words Alive Volunteer Appreciation Celebration that will take place virtually on Thursday, April 21 at 4:00 pm Pacific. Words Alive would not be the robust, thriving nonprofit it is today without the contributions of our volunteers!

Join us at this hour-long virtual event by signing up at this Zoom registration link. We hope to see you there as we honor our outstanding volunteers!

This newsletter, in addition to our blog and social media content, is written by us, a cohort of staff, interns and 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.

The Words Alive Reader: April 19, 2021

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!

13-Year-Old Aden Raises More Than $1,200 for Words Alive

A picture of Aden reading a book.

"I want to make sure others can enjoy the pleasure of reading without barriers standing in their way." — Aden

Words Alive would like to thank Aden for hosting a readathon with three of her friends to raise money for us, all the way from Washington, D.C.! As part of her Bat Mitzvah project, she has already raised over $1,200 to support our mission—more than double her initial $500 goal. Aden and her friends have already documented 3,369 minutes read. We are so inspired by her example and grateful for her support. Learn more about the project and help Aden reach her new $1,500 goal here!

Family Literacy Program with DEEP

A screenshot from one of our Family Literacy Program sessions.

We were excited to welcome 40 children (from 29 families) to the latest wave of our Family Literacy Program! Thanks to Diamond Educational Excellence Partnership (DEEP) and our dedicated volunteers, we shared six weeks of early literacy programming in Spanish and English with parents and their preschool age kids. We had a blast reading, singing, and doing crafts together, and are looking forward to many more Family Literacy Program sessions in the future. In the meantime, if you’re looking for literacy resources for the little ones in your life, visit our website!

Highlighting Asian American and Pacific Islander Stories

A graphic with a collage of some of the AAPI authors we featured and their books.

We know that authentic, diverse representation in the stories we read is a powerful way to combat hatred and build community. We use our social media platforms (@WordsAliveSD) to spotlight authors who represent the lived experiences of the children, teens, and families we serve.

Recently we've been proud to share the voices of authors from the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, such as Jenny Han, Kelly Yang, Randy Ribay, and more. For our latest blog post, we've compiled these spotlights as a resource to help all of us diversify the books we're reading. Check it out here!

Thank You, UCSD!

Three volunteers from UCSD jump for joy in front of a van packed with learning kit supplies.

Thank you to the dozens of UC San Diego students who took time out of their spring break to assemble learning kits with craft supplies, books and reading activities for us!  Learning Kits are stocked with the tools students need to succeed: pens and pencils, stationery, scissors, and, of course, new books. If you’d like to help, check out our Amazon wishlist to help us provide even more learning kits to students and families.

Join Us This Thursday For Our Volunteer Appreciation Celebration

A graphic that says “You’re Invited! Words Alive’s 12th Annual Volunteer Appreciation Celebration, Presented by EY.” In the bottom half, it says “Thursday, April 22 at 4PM PT. Sign up to join us for an optional breakout session to participate in the 2021 Art & Lit project!”

We want to celebrate you! You are invited to Words Alive's 12th Annual Volunteer Appreciation Celebration, presented by EY. The event takes place this week on Thursday, April 22nd at 4 pm PT.

Join us as we reflect on a year of incredible contributions from volunteers all across San Diego, the United States, and the world! ​​​​​​​During the hour-long event, join us as we present service awards to distinguished volunteers in our community and hear from organization and community leaders about the impact we made over the past year. There will also be a sneak-preview of our 2021 Art & Lit Experience.

Meet Fellow Volunteers at the Welcome Wagon

All aboard the Welcome Wagon! New to Words Alive or looking to meet other volunteers? Want to know what teams like the Curriculum Crew and Social Media Squad have been up to recently?

Come to this monthly event to meet new and veteran volunteers, learn more about each team and the projects they work on, and have fun! The next Welcome Wagon is leaving the station on Thursday, April 29th at 3pm PT.

Text that reads “MEET FELLOW VOLUNTEERS AT THE WORDS ALIVE WELCOME WAGON: Thursday, April 29th at 3 pm PT” over a floral blue, orange, and pink background.

Donate here to support Words Alive!

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.

- Zoe, Eli, Nia and Titiksha, Words Alive Storytelling Team

The Words Alive Reader: November 16th, 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.

- Zoe, Eli and Titiksha, Words Alive Storytelling Team

Processing the Election With the Power of Writing

Red, blue, and purple word bubbles made of paper spell “Be The Change.”

In our last edition of The Words Alive Reader, we shared about the launch of our virtual Read Aloud Program — we now have 33 classrooms participating! This week, we want to share something else we've been working hard on: Write Now, a digital space for teens to cope and connect with current events through writing.

As emotions run high over everything that's going on in our country right now, we're highlighting several of our Write Now prompts that feel especially fitting for this moment. Use them with your students or children, or try them for yourself. We hope that they empower everyone to reflect and respond in healthy ways to current events. 

Explore positive ways to respond to the news, remember to take a self-compassion news break, and, finally, think about ways to be the change you wish to see in the world.

2020 Authors Event & Fundraiser: Success!

Screenshots of Ayad Akhtar, Dr. Seth Lerer, and an image of Homeland Elegies. Text reads: “Annual Authors Event — Featuring Ayad Akhtar in conversation with Dr. Seth Lerer.”

With an entirely new, online format, this year's Annual Authors Event and Fundraiser was an adventure for all of us! We are grateful for everyone who came together to make this event a success.

More than 250 attendees joined us from all over the country, raising $77,000 to connect children, teens, and families to the power of reading. It brought us so much joy to see our community come together in this way.

If you missed the event, don't worry! You can still support us by purchasing access to the prerecorded conversation between Seth and Ayad through the end of 2020. Thank you for supporting Words Alive! 

Write Now with Susan Meissner

A picture of Susan Meissner in front of posters of her books.

Susan Meissner is an acclaimed author, a San Diego local, a Words Alive volunteer, AND one of the authors in this year's Authors Auction! At our latest Write Now workshop for teen writers, brought to you by Words Alive and the San Diego Public Library, she had plenty of advice for aspiring writers, especially when it comes to tackling the familiar enemy known as writers’ block. “It’s kind of like when you go into a pool, or the ocean, and the water is kind of cold, but stay in it, and your body finally acclimates,” she said. It’s all about persistence!

Find the full workshop, along with other exclusive videos from published authors, on our website!

Plot Twist: Logan Holland

A picture of Logan Holland.

Our volunteers come from all different kinds of backgrounds, proving that great books impact us all. Take Logan Holland, for example: a graduate student in biology at UC San Diego. The lessons she draws from her favorite books go hand-in-hand with her studies. As Logan puts it, “I wanted to understand humans biochemically, and then figuratively with literature.”

To read more about Logan’s unique perspective on the intersection of science and literature, and learn why she volunteers with Words Alive, check out Plot Twist, our new blog series! Keep an eye out for more stories in the future on the Words Alive blog.

Join the Words Alive Page Turners!

Graphic illustrating the “Life Cycle of a Page Turners Book.” Through Page Turners, new books are (1) discovered, (2) read, (3) reviewed, and (4) loved by our program participants!

We launched Page Turners in January so volunteers could help us choose the books we read with our students. Since then, more than 600 volunteers have joined Page Turners, contributing nearly 1,900 hours of service! This has allowed us to add 30 new books into our programming, with the knowledge that students will be engaging with high-quality titles our Page Turners have already read and loved. Some of our students at Monarch School are even reviewing books for Page Turners! Through this program, they're taking ownership of what they read in a very tangible way.

Are you interested in joining a community of passionate readers who are helping us read and review books? Visit our website to learn more.

Donate here to support Words Alive!

Plot Twist: Logan Holland

Welcome to our new blog series, Plot Twist! Here, we'll be sharing the stories of people in the Words Alive community — stories of change, growth, and maybe a few surprising twists! We hope that through these stories, you'll get to know our community a little better and see the power of literacy come to life.

A picture of Logan.

Meet Logan Holland, one of our awesome Words Alive volunteers! Logan is currently a graduate student at UC San Diego studying mitochondria and the heart, and she is a passionate and dedicated supporter of our mission. We sat down with Logan to talk about the surprising connection between science and literature, the role of books in her own life, and why she volunteers with Words Alive.

Logan joined us in 2018, during her second year of college. She was feeling unfulfilled in her undergraduate science classes—“like I needed more words and literature in my life,” she puts it—so she did a Google search and discovered Words Alive. She started out as an ABG and Art & Lit volunteer and has gone on to support us in many different roles since!

Logan's current favorite book, Bone Light by Orlando White.

“Literacy definitely impacts every single facet of everyday life,” she says, describing how literacy factors into civic engagement, navigating the healthcare system, and developing critical thinking skills (“becoming a better human!” as Logan puts it). And at Words Alive, she says, “Everyone is super passionate about reading and really spreading reading as not just a hobby, but as something that can really further education, further people’s opportunities, further people’s futures. That’s why I’ve stayed and tried to get involved as much as I can.”

In addition to the importance of basic literacy skills, she's passionate about the power of story to change lives. “Everything I did in college is because of books that I read as a kid,” she explains, “which is why I want to work with this organization.”

Words have held an important role in Logan’s own life ever since she was little, a book-loving kid reading for hours to pass the time while her parents worked. But until she began volunteering with Words Alive, she didn't fully appreciate how far books have gotten her. “Only one of my parents went to college, so I did not have this strong academic upbringing,” she says. But today, as a graduate student, she concludes: “I think the only reason I’m here is because I was reading a lot of books.”

““Doctors are interacting with humanity in a pretty raw form, right? Literature is doing the same thing, but just in a different way. It’s just really getting into what makes us human.””

The books that she read inspired her to explore the connection between science and stories with a major in biochemistry and a minor in literature and writing. “I like to think of myself as a double major at heart,” she says. “I wanted to understand humans biochemically, and then figuratively with literature.”

Her passion for exploring the human condition eventually led her to the field of medicine. “Doctors are interacting with humanity in a pretty raw form, right?” Logan points out. “Literature is doing the same thing, but just in a different way. It’s just really getting into what makes us human.”

She points to the framework of narrative medicine as an example. In narrative medicine, clinicians are trained to see illness, diagnosis and treatment as a story. “They’re having doctors read books and take creative writing classes to foster that empathy because that is super important in clinical practice, but also everyday life,” she explains. Logan sees this as evidence that stories are vital for helping us connect with and understand each other more deeply. “The more books we can get everyone reading, the better,” she declares. And through her work with Words Alive, she’s helped us do just that.

A screenshot from our Zoom conversation with Logan.

Since the pandemic hit, Logan has really taken leadership in training other volunteers to make an impact in this new virtual environment. She’s always enthusiastic and eager to help others understand the impact of the work they’ll be doing—she even recruited her roommate to start writing curriculum for us!

Throughout this experience, she has been surprised and encouraged by the amount of people who have stepped up to help. “It has been really amazing to work with Sara [our Communications Manager] and just recruit a lot more people because I think the more people helping, the bigger the better, the bigger the impact,” she says. She misses seeing the results of her work in person, but until then, she says, “I really hope that Words Alive can keep using the power of the internet to spread their message and recruit more volunteers.”

Of all the many hats she’s worn at Words Alive, from helping with Art & Lit to translating literacy sessions in Barrio Logan to virtually training other volunteers, writing curriculum is her favorite. Through her time volunteering in classrooms before COVID-19, she saw firsthand how good curriculum impacted the students she worked with; well-written questions got them engaged with a story, excited about a character or passionate about a cause.

A student speaks about the 2019 Art & Lit project, “The Radius of All of Us.”

She remembers one Art & Lit experience in particular, when she was able to see the impact of the book The Radius of Us on one of the students. “He gave a speech of gratitude of how much this book changed his perception of the world,” Logan says, smiling. “That is my favorite memory. To see that impact in one person was very, very cool.” 

Knowing that the questions she writes can lead to such powerful reactions is why she loves curriculum writing so much. “I’m just writing words on my computer at home,” she says, “but people are interacting with these words and they’re becoming ideas, or passions, or career choices—which is my life story.”

Logan, we’re so grateful for the time and energy you dedicate to bringing the power of words to our community. Thank you for sharing your story with us!

Books Connect Us: June 19, 2020

Through Words Alive’s response to COVID-19, “Books Connect Us,” we are sharing best practices from our 20+ year history to help children, teens, and families use the love of reading to navigate this turbulent time. Here are a few highlights from the past few days. 

Novel Ideas!

For the past few months, you’ve been following the journey of Words Alive’s adaptations to support youth and families through social distancing. Today we are proud to showcase some of the extraordinary work that has come from this turbulent time. 

Novel Ideas is an interactive online gallery of student voices powered by their connection to words, reading, writing, and art. Novel Ideas showcases work from more than 400 students exploring themes of student activism, social distancing, and a love of reading.

We invite you to a docent-led ‘tour’ (via Zoom) of the exhibit to hear stories of these incredible students at such a remarkable time. Sign up for a tour here.

Words Alive + University of California San Diego!

Virtual and remote volunteers are stepping up to support Words Alive in amazing ways during social distancing.

We recently partnered with the Center for Student Involvement at the University of California San Diego to host a two-week long volunteer-a-thon. Students participated in service projects enhancing our curriculum, translating materials to reach more communities, and outreach to help connect with more teachers and families. We want to extend a special thank you to the Words Alive volunteers who also facilitated each project!

 If your company or group are looking for virtual service opportunities, please contact Robyn.

New Curriculum Books!

Words Alive launched the Page Turners program last fall so volunteers could help review and identify which books we should read with our students. We are excited to announce the first books to be moved from our Page Turners reading list into our process to develop curriculum so the books can be used in our programs: Islandborn by Junot Díaz, Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor, Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring by Angela Cervantes, and Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles. Thank you to all of the Page Turners who read and reviewed these titles!

 Over 100 Page Turners are helping us decide which books should be taught in our classroom programming! Interested in joining? Click here.

Upcoming (Virtual) Events

Join us for these stories on Story Station every weekday afternoon (2 pm PT on Facebook Live):

6/22: Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin

6/23: Pass It On! by Marilyn Sadler

6/24: The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems

6/25: I'm Not a Chair! by Ross Burach

6/27: Special Friday surprise!

(Recordings are available on our Facebook page after the reading.)

Trending on #QuaranTEENS

Top stories and activities trending this week on #QuaranTEENS:

1. Book Cover Challenge

2. Create a Playlist 

3. Storytelling to Make Sense of the World

Donate Here to Support Words Alive's COVID-19 Response!