Crain's Features Sit Stay Read!

Since the very beginning it's been a goal of ours to have Sit Stay Read in the estimable Crain's Chicago Business and today was the day!!

Not only did they mention our impressive evaluation results, they illustrated the story with this great photo of Demarlon reading to Nancy and Brady.

Be sure to check-out the full article online and share it with everyone!

"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.

SSR on "Making a Difference Radio"!

How did Sit Stay Read get started? Click here to listen to Barbara Talisman interview Sit Stay Read executive director and co-founder MaryEllen Schneider on blog radio and find out!

Get a Disney Day When You Volunteer!

As seen on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and all over TV tonight, register for "Give A Day Get A Disney Day" and you get a free pass for a Disney park when you volunteer a day with Sit Stay Read!!

Our Best In Show benefit is coming up and we'll need lots of help--lend a hand and get rewarded by our friends at Disney!

Partners and Volunteers Make BIG Things Happen

Books Books Books Fall 09

It's been crazy busy around the SSR office but in a good, no GREAT, way! In addition to this being the final week of dog visits in five of our school programs--which means laminating and binding a self-authored book for every student--we were the recipients of a fabulous load of brand new books to give our students.

Thanks to our generous partners at Rock For Reading and their partner, Borders, every one of our 360 students gets to choose a book to take home to inspire them to keep reading over the holiday break. In addition, they get to choose a book to give to a younger reader--to share their love of reading. Our teachers are always looking for ways to keep students reading during break so we're thrilled to be able to help.

We rely on our hard-working volunteers to get the student-authored books bound and they came through for us, as always! And, as you can see (click on the photo to see the album), Laverne was there to supervise the job.

After the binding session, it was time to sort and pack the new gift books to get ready to deliver to the classrooms. How lucky were we to have volunteers from the Gap come in to lend a hand? We've never seen such organized workers!

Many thanks to our volunteers and partners for making this a wonderful holiday for all the second- third- and fourth-graders in our programs. Those books will be around for years to come and the kids will remember all you've done to help them "Keep Reading!"

Surprise! Sit Stay Read is Published!

Yesterday's weather was perfect for strolling along Michigan Ave and enjoying the holiday cheer downtown. As we passed the Cultural Center we noticed a sign we couldn't resist--an exhibit at the Tourism Gallery across the street on Randolph--"Sidewalks: Photographs by Charles Osgood and Stories by Rick Kogan". Of course we had to check it out and, boy, what a surprise we got!

The photos on display are from the "Sidewalks" column in the Tribune Magazine. As you may recall, Sit Stay Read was featured in March 2008. Well, look who's now in the latest book, "Sidewalks II"--that's Lisa Wiersma with her SSR dog, Turner! How cool is that!!

Be sure to drop by the gallery to see the exhibit and, if you time it right, you can even join Rick for a lunchtime discussion.

Shandy's Portrait Unveiling

We couldn't resist inviting some friends over on Friday for the unveiling of Shandy's incredible oil portrait! That's Cody and Tish posing in the background with Bandit.

Our friend John painted Bandit's portrait last year and then recently surprised us with one of Shandy. Aren't we lucky to have a friend with such talent?!

You can click on the photo for a closer view but it really doesn't do the paintings justice. John did a great job of capturing the personalities of both pups and the texture of the oil on Shandy's chest looks just like her fur. Amazing!