June 10, 2020
Words Alive launched Novel Ideas, an interactive online gallery of student voices powered by connections to words, reading, and writing. Three distinct exhibits feature work from 400+ students as they explore activism, social distancing, and a love of reading.
May 29, 2020
13 volunteers engaged in our first week of virtual Adolescent Book Group sessions. This included volunteers attending a student-led virtual session with students at the Lindsay School, sending check-in videos to student groups at Monarch, attending classroom sessions at Monarch, and next week will support our first virtual ABG writing workshop.
May 15, 2020
Our popular Kids Reading to Kids series is taking off! We received multiple submissions from students at Topanga Mountain School. This video series empowers kids to find their voice by allowing them to be role model readers for other kids!
May 11, 2020
We hosted a virtual workship for our Words Alive Westreich Scholars on the topic of healthy relationships. The workshop was hosted by Center for Community Solutions, who helped our scholars explore different types of relationship through examples in populare media and much more!
May 5, 2020
Words Alive celebrated #GivingTuesdayNow by sharing videos made by our volunteers, teachers, and program partners! In each video, a different Words Alive community member shares how books connect us, especially now. For #GivingTuesdayNow, our community came together to help us raise over $30,000 to help connect children and families to the power of reading.
May 1, 2020
Words Alive launched the remote version of our Family Literacy Program with 145 Head Start families today!
April 29, 2020
Matt de la Peña, author of young adult and children's books, took over Words Alive Story Station to read his book, Love on our Facebook Love. The story reminded us to cherish our loved ones, and look for signs of love all around us. Matt also recorded a writing challenge for our teen students, which you can find here: WordsAlive.org/quaranteens
April 27, 2020
We hosted a virtual workshop with our Words Alive Westreich Scholars on mindfulness. Mindfully Empowered facilitated some of the mindfulness practices from their Mindfulness for Uncertain Times Series that we post each Monday on QuaranTEENS. This engaging, live Zoom workshop gave scholars and mentors a chance to press pause and work on being present through activities such as expressing gratitude and breathing mindfully to reduce anxiety during these difficult times.
April 23, 2020
We launched an exclusive writing lesson designed by Mark Oshiro just for Words Alive! In this lesson, he teaches students how to turn an idea into a story. Check it out here: wwww.WordsAlive.org/quaranteens
April 22, 2020
Another 1,100 books and more than 100 backpacks with school supplies were loaded away with Neighborhood House Association!
April 17, 2020
250 backpacks with schools supplies will be distributed to families in need who attend our partner schools in the Diamond community! These supplies will support students and families at home as they begin remote learning on April 27th. Thank you to the Diamond Education Excellence Partnership for coordinating the effort!
April 16, 2020
To date we are reaching an average of 545 people daily with Books Connect Us! Since launching on March 18, we’ve served 6,600 people through our new online platform. Not only are we reaching more people than every before, but we have expanded far outside of Southern California, only 30% of our tracked engagement is in the state of CA.
April 13, 2020
With the launch of Books Connect Us, Words Alive has seen an outpouring of individuals wanting to help! We are excited to welcome 75 new volunteers from California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia!
April 10, 2020
We took the Words Alive Story Station to the next level —once again—by reading stories in Spanish every Friday. This addition makes our Story Station videos accessible to an greater amount of children and families than ever before.
March 30, 2020
Words Alive, Monarch School, and Golden Hill K-8 have distributed 600+ books to students. In a time of school closures — not to mention a lack of internet access for many of our students — students were overjoyed to have physical books to read!
March 26, 2020
Words Alive donated an additional 1,500 books to Neighborhood House Association to give away at their meal distribution sites!
March 26, 2020
There are children across San Diego sheltering in place without access to books in their homes. The Words Alive community is stepping up to help. Words Alive volunteer and author Lacy Crawford partnered with Warwick’s in La Jolla to ship new books to a group of wonderful teens from our Adolescent Book Group.
March 24, 2020
We took the Words Alive Story Station to the next level by hosting read alouds every weekday on Facebook Live! On average more than 500 people are watching each video. Adults are learning effective read aloud techniques while children are enjoying a new story everyday!
March 20, 2020
Marcie Colleen, children’s author, read her book Penguinaut! live on Words Alive’s Facebook and almost 1,000 people tuned in! You can view Marcie’s read aloud here.
March 19, 2020
We safely placed 200 books in Little Free Libraries in the Kensington and Normal Heights neighborhoods!
March 18, 2020
Thanks to numerous volunteers who held recent book drives for Words Alive, we were able to deliver 600 books to Neighborhood House Association to distribute at meal distribution sites across San Diego and 400 books to Diamond Educational Excellence Partnership to give to their community.
