Celebrating Our Community, Pain Awareness & Arthritis Support, and Recapping Our Economic Symposium

This month’s Community Spotlight is perfect for Back-to-School season! Our community member, The Reading Partnership is an incredible Non-Profit organization that strives to provide programs and resources that empower children and their families to build the brightest possible future through literacy. We believe all parents would benefit from participating in this initiative!

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW

1) Tell us about the Reading Partnership and what you do.

• Established in 2011, The Reading Partnership (TRP) offers rigorously evaluated literacy initiatives with strong success in promoting a love of reading and learning in children ages 0-12.
  • Core programs include:
    1. Reading Partnership for Parents: Parents are guided through a play-based approach to help their children ages 4-6 learn to read.
    2. 360° Stories: Budding young authors to write, illustrate, edit, and publish a story with a book launch.
    3. Kids ReadTO: Kids across the GTA connect through reading and discussing books in this professionally facilitated, 6-week virtual book club.
    4. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library: Kids in East Scarborough receive free books each month from birth until their fifth birthday to build their home libraries.
  • Values Include:
    1. Working together: Everyone has something valuable to contribute, which is why they partner with families, organizations, and entire communities to move the dial on children’s literacy rates.
    2. Prioritize minority communities: They believe in the power, resilience, and strength of underrepresented families.
    3. Accessible programming: They work to make programs accessible, showcasing representation, and celebrating vibrant diversity.
    4. Focus on kids: They’re dedicated to designing child-centered programs with positive, open environments and play-based activities that allow kids to let their imaginations run wild.
    5. Transform entire communities: They create possibilities that empower kids, families, and educators to reach their full potential so they can use what they’ve learned to generate positive change.
    6. Listen, learn, and grow: Through regular evaluation and research, they strive to constantly improve our high-caliber programming and grow as an organization. They listen to feedback from program participants to improve our programs and innovate.
    7. Remove barriers:  They do everything we can to make cost-free programs even more accessible because no one should be barred from attending due to factors outside of their control.
• We are a Canadian not-for-profit charity committed to advancing childhood literacy in underrepresented communities, with a specific focus on racialized communities, and low-income groups.

2) What are the primary goals of the organization?

• Our vision is that every child in every community has access to the support they need to learn to write & read and love it!
• Our mission is to provide programs and resources that empower kids and their families to build the brightest possible futures.
• Our values include working together, prioritizing communities, focusing on kids, transforming communities, removing barriers, and listening, learning, and growing.

3) What have been the biggest outcomes/impacts of the community you serve?

• 10,000 plus families have participated in TRP programs since 2012.
• 1000+ kids have joined our virtual Kids ReadTO book club since 2020.
• 141 children are now published authors through ten 360° Stories anthologies.
• 19,500+ books distributed to build home libraries for children and families across the GTA.
• 500+ caregivers have taught their children to read through our Reading Partnership for Parents (RPP) program.
• RPP is now scaling with the help of families, organizations, and educators to reach more families across the country.

4) What are the biggest challenges the Reading Partnership has faced?

• Like most organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our methods for program delivery. We knew
  we couldn’t halt learning opportunities for children and families, so we made the quick transition to online
  learning and developing new accessible programs – like Kids ReadTO, our virtual book club, and R-POD,
  our digital learning series – for families and children across the GTA.
• Learning how to utilize technology to enhance and automate our work so our team can have more time to
  focus on doing the things that are most important.

5) What are the Reading Partnership’s goals for the future?