The Dollar General Literacy Foundation recently announced the award of more than $80,000 in youth literacy grants to Indiana nonprofit organizations, libraries and schools.
The funds are part of more than $4 million awarded across the country for recipients to use the funds to purchase books, technology, equipment or materials to help extend a brighter future for K-12 students.
“We understand investing in youth literacy means investing in the future of students and our collective communities,” Denine Torr said, executive director of the DGLF. “Through these grants, we hope to enhance the programs’ efforts to foster students’ critical thinking skills, creativity and confidence so they can unlock their potential and achieve their dreams.”
The two Jackson County grant recipients are Brownstown Public Library in the amount of $1,753 and Girls Inc. of Jackson County in the amount of $4,000.
“Without grants like this, it would be hard to provide programming like this,” Michelle Owens said, the youth services specialist with the library.
With the money, they are planning on developing an after-school book club for beginner readers, catered to those in kindergarten and first grade, starting in September.
For their book club, they want to have a reading circle and activities that promote reading fluency and instilling vocabulary, she said. The kids will also be able to take the book they read home.
“We want to encourage them to read it again at home to improve their reading skills,” Owens said.
Girl Inc. is going to update their literacy program with the grant money. Currently, they have a small room with books, but haven’t been able to purchase any new books recently. To check the effectiveness of their program, Darren Cain who is development manager with Girls Inc. of Jackson County, gave a plan they have.
“We were going to do a pretest (in September) and see how girls tested in reading and then do a posttest in May to evaluate the results,” Cain said.
She said they already have books in mind to order and want copies of the same book so multiple children can read one book at the same time.