Saying Good-bye to Maggie

Saying good-bye is the most difficult part of loving our canine friends. We're so sad to report that Rick and Lauren Johnson's beloved Maggie died of a stroke last Friday.

That's Maggie on the left with her partner in reading, Baguette, at their annual Halloween party in 2008.

Both Maggie and Baguette have been SitStayRead dogs almost from the beginning. They were certified in 2004, just a year after the founding of the organization, and continued to spread joy year after year.

Maggie's sweet, calm presence made her a favorite with kids and adults alike. Her enthusiastic tail wag in greeting always brought smiles--and if she was lucky, a treat from her admirers. Maggie will be greatly missed by so many. Thank you, Rick and Lauren, for sharing her with us.

Presenting Smokey and the Bandit

SitStayRead's Hollywood night at Kinowerks Studio was a smash hit! As you can see from Smokey and the Bandit, guests were dressed in their finest for the big night. (Smokey is actually wearing a tux!)

Guests enjoyed food and drinks while touring the facility and everyone was in awe watching The Matrix in the private screening room of the Wachowskis who wrote, directed, and produced The Matrix Trilogy.

Nearly $2,000 was raised at this blockbuster event--all of which will help more kids learn to love reading! Click on Smokey and the Bandit to see more photos of all the fun.

Our thanks to everyone who attended and helped with this event, and a special thanks to Kinowerks and the Wachowskis for hosting SitStayRead in their star studded studio!

Raise a Glass for SitStayRead!

We're happy to announce that a small quantity of Old Shore Vineyards 2010 "Sofia" Rose of Pinot Noir is now officially available to the public! Click here to purchase.

With subtle aromas of dark cherries, strawberries, and vanilla, this special reserve vintage is exceptional for more than taste; every bottle or case purchased supports SitStayRead. Click on Experience and then, Giving Back, to learn more.

And be sure to read all about the wonderful people at OSV--including the famous Sofia, vineyard dog and latest SitStayRead dog team member (pictured here with her dog team partner, Dannielle!)

Our New SitStayRead All Stars!

We're thrilled to announce that the 2011 batch of SitStayRead bookmarks has arrived featuring five new furry faces!

From left to right, we have Jack (winner of the silent auction bookmark package), Charlie & Emma (Dogs of the Year!), Bandit (seasoned SitStayRead Dog), and Feste (winner of the online auction bookmark package.)

Click here to find out more about these super star dogs! Give a big round of a-paws to these adorable pups!

Email from a Principal

That's Shandy with Evion, a young reader at Hendricks Academy, back in 2004. I can still remember how earnest Evion was when reading aloud. He'd be all smiles though when it came time to have Shandy do a trick.

Hendricks was our very first SitStayRead school and it is such a treat for the volunteers and dogs to return there each year. So you can imagine how thrilled we were to get this email from Principal Perisin.

"Here at Hendricks we are working to ensure that our students will have a world class education and you are helping me to fulfill that goal. Next year there will be some changes and we hope that you will still be working with us. You have been an anchor for our literacy program and we want you to continue the work."

Thank you Principal Perisin for your kind words--you can count on us to continue making reading fun for the fabulous students at Hendricks!

Welcome To Our New SitStayRead Dogs!

Today was an exciting day at the office! Two dogs passed the Dog Team Test to become part of our programs. Congratulations Smokey and Sofia!

Dannielle (on the right) is the proud handler of gorgeous Labradoodle, Sofia. You won't want to miss the new dog-themed wine that Dannielle, of Old Shore Vineyards, will be unveiling in the next few weeks to honor Sofia and benefit SitStayRead. Look for more details to come!

And no doubt you recognize our Admin Asst Amy and our office pup, the adorable Smokey.

Look for these great new teams in programs soon!

A Greater Good For Reading!

We are excited to share that GreaterGood.org has awarded a generous grant to SitStayRead! The prestigious London-based The Economist Group chose GreaterGood.org to fund an education project in the United States, and GreaterGood.org chose SitStayRead as the recipient. Yeah!! The grant of $11,800 funds an entire class of second-graders for the full school year!

We are honored to be affiliated with GreaterGood.org. Click here to check out the work they make possible through The Literacy Site website and be sure to click every day to help us reach more kids in need!

Here's what Lisa Halstead, board president of GreaterGood.org, had to say:

"We're very grateful to The Economist Group for providing the funding to enable us to support an entire year's worth of sessions for one school's second grade. And we are equally impressed with the quality of the program provided by SitStayRead. Through their innovative use of dogs and their dedicated volunteers, they have made an amazing impact on the lives of the children that they serve."

Click here or on the photo above to see the video that accompanied the grant announcement. The furry stars in this video include our very own SitStayRead dogs: Wrigley, Tojo, Spinny, Laverne, Lola, and Charley!

An Email from a Program Leader

Jess Biscamp, one of our fabulous SitStayRead program leaders, made our day with this email to her team of volunteers in Ms. Pierre's class at Sumner Academy. We are so lucky to get to work with such great kids, teachers, and volunteers.

Hello, Sumner volunteers,

I didn't want to wait until next week to share Mrs. Pierre's good news and thanks with you. She pulled me aside during the program today and let me know that since we started coming, her students have been asking her if they can take home three and four books to read on the weekends. She said this is a big change in how much enthusiasm they have toward reading.

She also showed me the improvement in some of their reading fluency scores (i.e., DIBELS testing). Many of the students started the year in the 45-70 words-per-minute range and have now reached 90-120 words-per-minute! They are considered at grade level if they reach 90-words-per-minute at the beginning of third grade, and many of the students have already surpassed that in second grade. I cannot begin to express to you just how thankful Mrs. Pierre is for all the time and effort you are putting into helping her students improve their reading and writing; she said that the added excitement of new people and dogs has really pushed the students to do their absolute best. She was positively joyous while telling me about it!

Thank you all for the effort and time you put in to help these students. You are making a huge difference in their lives.

Happy Reading!

Jess Biscamp

Reading Fun at NUSH!

Our newest after-school programs at Northwestern University Settlement House (NUSH) just finished-up and the response from the kids, volunteers, and NUSH partners (thank you Mr. Jesse!) was overwhelmingly positive!

The NUSH e-newsletter included a slideshow of the fun--that's Spinney and Sandy with a young reader. To see a slideshow of more photos, click here.

Many thanks to our friends at Bears Care for bringing SitStayRead and NUSH together to help students read! We look forward to returning in spring for another session.

First Midwest Bank Rocks!

Manierre Student Authors

The final fall dog visit to Manierre School was such fun! Not only did each student receive their very own self-authored book, but Ms. Ernetta Roper from First Midwest Bank was on hand to make the day even more special.

As a member of the First Midwest Charitable Foundation board, Ms. Roper presented SitStayRead with a grant check for $5,000! That goes a long way towards making the program at Manierre possible.

Ms. Roper, daughter of a school teacher herself, spent the entire hour in Ms. Oceguera's classroom listening to student's read her their stories and helping them edit--doing her mother proud!

Many thanks to First Midwest for their commitment to children's literacy! Be sure to click on the photo to see lots more pictures of the kids and dogs at Manierre.

Celebrity Sighting!

That's award-winning actress Rondi Reed with SitStayRead dog Milo at Saturday's CARE Faire!

Sarah Scott reports that Ms. Reed was quite taken with the idea of kids reading to dogs and would like to get involved. Woo hoo!

Can you imagine Rondi Reed as a guest reader in a SitStayRead classroom? We can! Very exciting. Actors read the book Broadway Barks, by Bernadette Peters to a class of 2nd graders and talk about why reading is important in their profession, as well as to them personally. No telling how many kids might be inspired to become actors!

Bandit & Jack Learn a Trick

One of the many great things about taking your dog to work is that you have more opportunities for training. Lucky us, Jack and Bandit love to learn!

Dogs Play By 4 Rules

If you've ever watched dogs at play, I'm sure you'll recognize the Dog Rules listed in this very interesting Scientific American Mind article by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce.

Here's Bandit teaching our foster pups how to play fair. They're all grown-up now but that's Cowboy and Ripley bowing to Bandit. Tip's in the back waiting for an opportunity to jump in.

Can you guess the 4 rules of ethical dogs? Check-out the article.

Remembering Tibbie

Tibbie

It is with a very heavy heart that I report that our dear Sit Stay Read dog, Tibbie, left this world today. He was in liver failure and his family made the difficult decision to let him go. Seth tells us, "He went peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. . .we should all be so lucky."

Tibbie was always a favorite with the kids--one look at that face and you can see why(click on photo to see more.) Only last week he and Seth were part of the team in Ms. Nolin's classroom helping more kids learn to love reading. Kennell, a second-grader dedicated his book to Tibbie: "I dedicate this book to Jerry and Tibbie because Tibbie is a loving dog and I take care of him."

Thank you Seth for sharing Tibbie with so many. We are forever grateful for having you both as a Sit Stay Read team.

"Wrigley Will Always Help Me"

From Student Stories

Because Sit Stay Read programs are so much fun, it can be easy to forget the impact the dogs and volunteers have on our fabulous kids. Reading fluency scores are certainly improved but there's also the personal impact.

When Stella, Brady and Bandit visited Mr. Groves' 3rd grade classroom last week, the students wrote about them in their stories, but many of the kids chose to write about the SSR dogs they remember from last year in 2nd grade--Wrigley, Rocky and Blue.

In addition to Dajanae's story about Wrigley (the title of this post), Tyshawn wrote about "The Adventures of the Mighty Rocky" and Katrina's story told how "I Saved Blue". The dogs become a part of the students' lives and they enjoy remembering the time they spent reading together.

Click on the link under the photo to read these and other stories from our young authors.

Spooky Pooch Was a Blast

Pooch Parade 2009

Sarah Scott and her team, Debbie, Stacy, Sarah, and, of course, Milo and Lulu had a great time talking with folks at the Botanic Gardens' first Spooky Pooch parade on Halloween.

The costumes were a riot and everyone had a smile on their face. I think we have a new Halloween tradition! Click on the photo to see the full album. You won't believe the creativity.

Sit Stay Read in Today's News!

We're so excited!

Be sure to pick-up today's Chicago Sun-Times and check-out the great article on the Sit Stay Read program at Sunlight African Community Center! You can read the story here but you'll want to grab the newspaper so you can see the photos of Tojo, Stella, and the kids.

My Special Pumpkin

Happy October!

Although Shandy's not a big fan of costumes, she's occasionally deigned to wear something festive for the kids. I can't believe this photo of my little pumpkin is from way back in 2003. Cauren must be in 8th grade now. Wow.

If your pup is a Halloween fan, be sure to enter the photo contest by our friends at Puplife.com You could win a $100 gift certificate!

New! Collectible Dog Bookmarks

Here they are--our fabulous bookmark models!

That's Slugger and Brady the winners from Guest Bartender night at Lizard's Lounge, Rocky our Dog of the Year, and Shandy, the original Sit Stay Read dog.

We're so excited about our first edition of collectible bookmarks and can't wait for the kids in our programs to see them.

For a limited time you can get your very own set of these fun new bookmarks. Simply make a donation before Oct 31st and we'll include all four bookmarks with your acknowledgment letter. You help kids learn to read and get a gift, too, how's that for a win-win!

Pierre--Our Online Star!

We were so excited when author Joy Butler asked to use a photo of Sit Stay Read dog, Pierre, to illustrate an article about reading assistance dogs!

You can read Joy's article and see Guy Franklin's Pierre here.