Children’s Literacy Project

“My very own library.”  Twice a month during the school year, one of the League’s sustainer volunteers goes into the Kindergarten classroom at Metropolitan Ministries Academy, a Charter School serving the Homeless and inner city students in grades K-5. She says "I read the books to the class and leave them with a wonderful gift from the Junior League.  The students truly love this time and take great pride in collecting the books throughout the year.  One student this year who kept every book given to him in his backpack the entire year.  His teacher said he always showed his 'library' to classroom visitors." For the most part, the schools served by this project do not have the luxury of parent volunteers.  

Through Children’s Literacy, The Junior League of Tampa promotes literacy by sending trained volunteers into kindergarten classrooms at Hillsborough County Title I schools to conduct storytelling sessions and give each child 16 books per year to take home. For some of the children, these are the first of their very own. The project has also provided classrooms with multilingual literacy backpacks, teaching materials for centers, butterfly gardens, and additional books. During the 2007-2008 school year, our volunteers gave away more than 25,000 books and spent 1,000 hours training and reading for 960 kindergarten students in 44 classrooms at 9 schools. Thanks to special grants from The Saunders Foundation, Heritage Bank of Florida, and The Frank E. Duckwall Foundation, Inc., the Children’s Literacy project has been able to share a love of reading and books with more children than ever before.