Media Resources
San Diego Public Library’s READ/San Diego — Families for Literacy Program Wins National $10,000 Better World Books/NCFL Libraries and Families Award
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (April 5, 2011) — Better World Books and the National Center for Family Literacy today announced that READ/San Diego, the adult and family literacy program of the San Diego Public Library, is one of three winners of the annual Better World Books/NCFL Libraries and Families Award.
“Our goal is to break the cycle of intergenerational low-literacy,” said Kim Noriega, family literacy coordinator for the program, which serves 100 families. “This grant will allow us to increase the number of programs and books, which will benefit countless additional families.”
The program targets low-literate English-speaking parents, grandparents or caregivers who are at least 18 years of age with at least one child under age 5. It provides parents with one-on-one literacy training for themselves, introducing families to the services of the public library, teaching parents how to read to their children and ensure they are ready for school. Free children’s books also are provided to help families create at-home libraries.
“This program fills a tremendous need in the community,” said David Murphy, president and CEO of Better World Books. “We are proud to partner with NCFL to specifically promote the new and innovative ways libraries like this are working to bring families together over books and learning.”
A large majority of parents in the program are achieving their literacy goals, including helping children with homework, interacting with teachers at school, regularly visiting the library and sharing books with their children at home. As a result, children are entering school much more prepared.
“Libraries provide important access for families to read together and take other critical steps that lead to success — both immediately and later in life,” said Emily Kirkpatrick, NCFL vice president. “This award funding will spur the innovative programming fundamental to that success.”
The other winners of the Better World Books/NCFL Libraries and Families Award are the Friends of the Dallas Library’s Every Child Ready to Read@Dallas and the Queens Library Family Literacy Program.
Funding for the program comes from the Better World Books for Libraries program, a free service that helps libraries manage their unwanted books. Better World Books sells those books online, sharing the revenues with the libraries and its nonprofit literacy partners.
This is the second year of the award and the latest partnership effort between NCFL and Better World Books, which together have raised more than $695,000 for NCFL’s programming since 2005.
Hundreds of thousands of books have been donated and sold to support family literacy since the partnership began. Books come from college campus book drives, library discards and donations, and corporate book drives. These efforts have funded the purchase of more than 10,000 books to restock family libraries after Hurricane Katrina and the development of resources to reach wide audiences with literacy tools and materials.
ABOUT NCFL
The National Center for Family Literacy is the worldwide leader in family literacy. More than 1 million families have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of NCFL’s work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of volunteers. For more information, visit www.famlit.org.
ABOUT BETTER WORLD BOOKS
Better World Books (www.BetterWorldBooks.com) is a for-profit social enterprise that collects and sells books online with each sale generating funds for literacy initiatives in the U.S. and around the world. With more than eight million new and used titles in stock, Better World Books is a self-sustaining company that balances the social, economic and environmental values of its stakeholders. Better World Books diverts books from landfills by conducting book drives on 1,800 college campuses, and by collecting discards from over 2,000 libraries. Since its founding in 2003, the Mishawaka, Ind.-based company has raised over $9 million for its non-profit literacy, library and college partners; donated over 4 million books; re-used or recycled more than 45 million books; achieved over 19,000 tons of carbon offsets through carbon-neutral shipping, and created more than 200 full-time jobs with meaningful benefits.