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!

Reading Rewards Underway!

The Reading Rewards celebrations are underway and, as you can see, the kids are soooo thrilled!!!

We're still up to our eyeballs here in the Sit Stay Read office wrapping-up the school year but you can count on seeing more photos of the on-going RR celebration excitement soon.

New this year, were surprise special guests at the celebrations. Here's a photo of our Hendricks Academy top reader, Rayshawn (62 books read!) with George McCaskey, one of the owners of the Chicago Bears (and a great SSR supporter through Bears Care), and fire fighter Joe Pryst.

Many thanks to everyone who makes these celebrations possible--our generous donors, fabulous volunteers (two- and four-legged), and special guests. As teacher David Groves put it, “Sit Stay Read is so exciting for the kids and sends a powerful message that the community is excited about their accomplishments and is invested in their continued academic success!”

It's not too late to lend a hand--please donate today!

A Dream Comes True

You may have heard me say that a dream of mine is to have our SSR kids come back to us to volunteer. Well, while I truly believed that would happen one day, I never imagined it would be so soon (kids today are so advanced!)

Meet Carly, age 6, reading to Shandy in our very first program at Sulzer Library in 2003. Seems Carly never forgot her friends at SSR so when she needed a service project for school, she told her mom she'd like to help SSR.

After a visit to the office last week with her mom and her sister Sheila (also in our first program) to learn about volunteering, Carly signed-up to help out in the office after school on Wednesdays. How cool is that?

But wait, there's more. There's also Ariana, a new friend of SSR. For Ariana's 7th birthday she asked friends and family to donate to SSR in lieu of gifts (see Ariana's tribute page.) She decorated a pail to collect the donations and asked her mom if she could bring her pail to the office and, maybe get to meet one of the SSR dogs.

Perhaps you can see where this is going--when Ariana came to the office she not only met Shandy, the original SSR dog, but Carly helped her read to Shandy! We were bursting with joy at seeing the girls together. Check-out the photos here and let us know what you think of these great kids!

Joan Baez & Sit Stay Read

Many thanks to Sit Stay Read supporter Brian Gregory for nominating us for our very first award! And not just any award, but the same one that Joan Baez received just two weeks ago in recognition of her music and activism.

The e-chievement award is presented by the national radio show etown to recognize "people around the country who've found positive solutions to challenges in their communities."

SSR will be honored with the award at the live show in Boulder, CO this Sunday. The show is taped and will air on WDCB 90.9FM in Chicago at 9pm on a Friday in a few weeks. We'll keep you posted on the exact air date for our show--which also features Jakob Dylan (son of Bob.) Very exciting!

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!

A Surprise from Ms. Schmidt's Class!

This week we received a delightful surprise from Ms. Schmidt's 2nd graders at Lowell Elementary. The students loved Sit Stay Read SO much that they each wrote their own story about their favorite memory with the dogs and volunteers.

Ms. Schmidt was kind enough to bind the heartfelt stories into a book for Sit Stay Read to keep. What a special treat to have these wonderful stories in the office! Take a look through a few of our personal favorites from the kids. The illustrations are fantastic, too!

Thank you Ms. Schmidt and all of the students for putting a big smile on our faces!

The Ultimate Book Store?

Wow! Now that's a book store I could get lost in for hours (even though I couldn't read most of the books.)

Be sure to check-out this photo from National Geographic's current issue. Gorgeous!

Thanks for the link, Norm.