Our nonprofit program strives to engender a love of reading and books in children at elementary inner city schools in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Volunteers give an hour a week and spend that time reading to children selected by their teachers as those who'd most benefit from this read-aloud experience.

Description:
We operate at five elementary schools in the district, and the students we read with are in grades K-2. Our volunteer readers are paired with the same two children every week, spending 1/2 hr. with each. Every student has an individual folder, which we fill with 4-6 different books for each session. Twice a month, each student selects a book from his or her folder to take home to keep. All books are new, high quality paperbacks, and over the 24 weeks of the program, students acquire a dozen or more new books with which to start a home library. Often, these are the first books these children have owned, or they may be the first books in their homes. A bond of trust and friendship between adult and young student generally develops over the time of our sessions each year, which is beneficial for both!

History:
Founded in 1996 by the late Dr. Marilyn Nye, a retired professor of Education with a background in international children's literature, we have grown to a volunteer population of over 150 and can serve five inner city schools in our northern California district.
We provide an average of 1800 new books per year to school children, and around 3600 hours of volunteer time to schools in areas that are often in need of community involvement and support.

Contact people:

Judy Sam, (phone), (email) Harriet Hanauer, Office Manager, (phone), (email)

Office fax number: (510) 559-4615

Address:

P. O. Box 2000 El Cerrito, CA 94530

Web Site: http://www.ravp.org