E-Chievement Award--What an Honor!

A big thank you to E-town radio for honoring the work of Sit Stay Read with the prestigious E-Chievement Award. Listeners from around the country send in nominations and we were chosen!

Here's Shandy posing with the award and modeling her snazzy E-town bandanna.

Grammy winner Jakob Dylan was the featured musical guest on the radio show as well--how cool is that? Click here to listen to the interview online.

This is a very special recognition for Sit Stay Read and the wonderful kids the program serves. Many thanks to our fabulous supporters and volunteers for making it all possible!

Our Volunteers Know How to Party!

Volunteer Appreciation Celebration 2010

Sit Stay Read's annual Volunteer Appreciation Party was a ton of fun! Held last Tuesday at Mrs. Murphy's and Sons Irish Bistro, everyone had a great time.

Honoring the hard work of all our fabulous volunteers was the focus of the evening. Among the highlight's was the announcement of Jennifer Cristina as 2010 Volunteer of the Year and a special presentation to our longest serving dog team. Click on the photo to see our special honorees and more action shots by our volunteer photographer, Bill Shomaker.

Many thanks to everyone for making 2009-10 a great year of reading fun!

Fun Packs Instead of Summer School?

An article in yesterday's Sun-Times, "Are books just as good as summer school?", stopped me in my tracks. As if these smiling faces from one of our Reading Rewards celebrations aren't proof enough, there's new research that shows the importance of children having books to read over the long summer vacation.

By sixth grade the "summer slide" in academics accounts for as much as 80% of the achievement gap for low-income students. But not for our Sit Stay Read students--they have Summer Reading Fun Packs to keep them reading and writing all summer long!