2007 Youth Leaders for Literacy Winners

In Nassau County, N.Y., the Youth Council of the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission has created Head Start Learns!—a literacy project designed to assist children in Head Start programs throughout the county. The literacy project provides reading activities, mentor training and book donations to children in low-income communities.

In St. Paul, Minn., Central High School senior Kaozovapa Lee has created a teen literacy and mentoring project to assist the region's immigrant community by setting up weekly literacy visits with elementary age children. The literacy project is designed to not only help the children with their reading skills and comprehension, but also to build character and mentoring skills in Lee's peers.

New York high school freshman Gustavo Maximo is organizing Our Voices, a series of poetry workshops and poetry jams to foster literacy among fellow students at Rice High School and at the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library for the local community. The poetry project is designed not only to engage Maximo's fellow teens in poetry and literacy, but also strengthen the community-school link between the school and the local public library.

California brothers Brady and Kyle Baldwin have created the My Own Book literacy and story project, creating new books for K–3 students and organizing readings by community leaders. The Baldwin brothers have also involved teen peers in the literacy project, engaging them in reading and writing. The boys invited the mayor, fire chief, police chief, school board members, and others to participate in their reading events and will be donating books to the children in this low-income community.

Minnesota high school senior Mai Yiu Vang's Bookland project combines learning activities for children and women in the Hmong community, because Hmong children and families are struggling with literacy, and Hmong teens have been dropping out of school because of illiteracy problems. Together with the Hmong Women's Heritage Association, Vang is working with the Hmong Men's/Women's Circle afterschool program to assist with tutoring.

The Chosen Heirs, a group of 22 fifth graders in McDonough, GA., have created the Books for Breakfast Book Club featuring guest readers and community activities. The students have created themed activities, a book swap, and breakfast readings at selected elementary schools.

Seattle college freshman Emily Hazleton is working with Reading Tools for Life, using videotaping and video presentations to help create reading tools for struggling adults at the Literacy Source Center. The project will help the adult students in the program by recording the students reading and charting their progress and support, and by sharing the program with the community. The project is designed to raise the literacy level of these adults and help them find a place in the community.

In New Hampshire, members of Belmont High School's Student Council have created Hooked on Books—a hospital-based project that partners the Belmont School with Lakes Region General Hospital. The teens are creating and building a hospital reading library, organized reading events, literacy training, and book drives for the children and families.

Ottumwa (Iowa) High School's Teens Advocating Literacy is working with the Ottumwa Regional Health Center to create a Dial a Dream story program for families of newborns and parents of young children, with a concentration on English language learner students and families.

Through the Follow in Our Footsteps Literacy Program, 50 Fairfield, Conn., high school students are working with Shepherds, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help inner-city youth in Bridgeport, Stamford, and New Haven. The students will be working with five elementary schools and will do readings featuring reading heroes; conduct book drives; and work with local illustrators and cartoonists, poetry slams, and multicultural readings.

The fourth- and fifth-grade English language learner students of Angus Elementary School in Sterling Heights, Mich., are interviewing class members and families and the residents of the Cherrywood Retirement Center. The interviews are part of an intergenerational literacy project that combines readings, pen pal partnerships with senior citizens, oral history reports and book presentations of the stories at local public libraries.

Together with her local church, Olivia Stinson has created a Pen Pal and Book Club Project that serves the children and families of incarcerated parents in her Charlotte, N.C., community. The literacy project establishes pen pal partnerships between Olivia's peers and the children of incarcerated parents. The two groups will also gather for readings, book review sessions, field trips to films based on children's books, and book group discussions.

The Hemlock Girl Scout Council Young Adult Book Club in Harrisburg, Pa., has created a teen reading discussion group complete with a signature newsletter "Have you read…??" highlighting books read by local middle school students. The council is working with local authors in developing special reading incentives, author visits and reading challenges to engage middle school students. The students created the projects to get their peers excited about reading and to share their own excitement about new books and authors for teens.

The Wilmot J. Fraser Elementary Breakfast Reading Club in Charleston, S.C., conducts weekly reading sessions for their peers at reading centers they created for the local schools. The project is designed for the school's K-3 students, but also includes outreach to the older and younger brothers and sisters of the students.

Students in the Joseph Case Junior High School Literary Book Club in Swansea, Mass., have begun writing, editing, and publishing their own books. The books are included in reading and writing sessions by the literary club with four elementary schools in the Swansea area.

The Cordova Cubs, fourth graders at Cordova (Tennessee) Elementary School are working with English as a Second Language classrooms (grades K–4) to create readings and activity projects, conduct a readers' theater, write book projects, and establish personal libraries for each of the students they help.

The New York State Conference of NAACP Youth and College Division is using its Adopt a School program in New Rochelle to increase the literacy outcomes for Black and Hispanic children in their community through the "Writing Our History" literacy project. The chapter is working with the Flushing High School Champions Club and Parsons Junior High School Beacon Program, engaging the three projects in afterschool literacy programs to track the history of the NAACP in their community. The group is conducting a reading and writing program that will end with a regional conference attended by 500 young people.

Burgettstown (Pennsylvania) Area Elementary Center's Study Buddy program makes model reading teachers of the school's third-grade students, pairing them with kindergarten classes. The extensive reading programs and activities have been developed entirely by the third-grade students. The program will provide books and reading activities for the kindergarten classrooms.

Hope McFarland, an eleventh grader in New Orleans, La., has established the Reading Ambassadors program for Providence House, a homeless shelter for 70 families living there. McFarland's reading project includes guest readers, literacy training, and book donations and takes care of the shelter's children while their mothers are also in training. The project also provides character building resources and activities to help the children and families through this challenging time in their lives.

Alexander Srodes, a Placida (Florida) High School student, author, and wildlife conservationist whose quest is to save the sea turtles and educate the world about the plight of such endangered species, has written a children's book and activity guide and education program for students. Srodes uses his book and activity guide to educate students and communities about the plight of the sea turtles and has even had his book translated into Spanish.

Find out more about Youth Leaders for Literacy grants.