Category: Special Needs

The CSLP Child and Community Well-Being Committee (CCWB) is pleased to share  “Read Up!”, a mini-manual for non-library summer feeding sites, is now available for download on the CSLP website:

Read Up! is a free 26-page resource for Summer Food Service Program sites and other feeding sites outside of libraries, featuring easy-to-implement enrichment activities that support reading, creativity, and fun. The activities are adapted from the 2020 CSLP manual. A section on Reading and Literacy Basics, written by the team, guides such sites on how they can organize literacy-supportive activities even with no books on hand, and how they can partner with libraries, involve teens, and collaborate with other community entities.

MANY thanks to the CCWB team responsible for this project:

Linda Bartley

Ally Doliboa

Stacy Hill

Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Danielle Margarida

Jennifer McNeal

Janet Reynolds

Lisa Valerio-Nowc

And to Cathy Lancaster, the Library of Michigan, and LM’s contract designer who turned our Google doc into a crisp, appealing, professional publication. And to Luke Kralik for support and encouragement throughout.

When this resource was envisioned last spring, and through the fall and winter when they worked on selecting and adapting CSLP manual programs and writing the Reading and Literacy Basics content, no one could have had any idea the committee would be releasing this resource into a world without congregate settings such as summer camps and sit-down lunches at parks, rec centers, and churches. Though states are starting to “open up,” there is of course so much unknown about the future and about the duration of the public health emergency. However the mini-manuel was written to be “evergreen”, not specifically tied to the 2020 Summer Library Program (though it takes its activities from the current program), and will be helpful and encouraging whenever sites are safely permitted to feed and engage young people in congregate settings. Please share, however and whenever appropriate, with your communities SFSP administering agency and other partners in child nutrition.