News Briefs & Upcoming Events

Pingry Students’ Service-Learning Activity Promotes Family Literacy in New Jersey and Around the World

November 1st marks National Family Literacy Day. Celebrated across the U.S., the day focuses on special activities and events that showcase the importance of family literacy programs. First held in 1994, the annual event is officially celebrated on November 1st, but many events are held throughout the month of November. Schools, libraries, and other literacy organizations participate through read-a-thons, celebrity appearances, book drives, and more.

As part of their annual Community Service Day, a group of some thirty Pingry School students joined GLP at our Hillside warehouse the Friday before Family Literacy Day and helped to sort and pack several thousand books for distribution to our local and international programs.

It is with the help of volunteers such as these students that we continue to make a difference in the lives of those in need of access to literacy materials around the world. This group was all the more special as several members traveled with GLP to South Africa this past summer. Since their return they have galvanized their friends with the stories of how valuable their contribution as global citizens can be.

Annual “Walk for Literacy” Raises Funds for Local New Brunswick Daycare and South African Kindergarten

The Global Literacy Project partnered once more with G.O.Y.A, a Rutgers student organization for one of the most successful literacy walks to date! On October 9, 2010, the fall sun gleamed in a perfect sky for the over 15 participating groups who turned out to walk the 5K route through New Brunswick with self-painted banners representing their organizations. Music, food, t-shirts and smiles created an atmosphere of friendship—walking towards a common goal—an all empowering body of individuals committed to local youth and the advocacy of literacy. There was an unmistakable hum of cooperation and energy present in the air of New Brunswick that day!

The walk began in front of Douglass Campus Center and ended at the steps of Brower Commons on College Avenue. Over one hundred participants were treated to a post-walk celebration party. The walk generated greatly needed funds to buy computers for the P.R.A.B, a local New Brunswick daycare and to support global education initiatives.  A portion of the funds raised will also help complete the renovation of a  kindergarten classroom in South Africa during GLP’s next Global Learning Expedition slated for January 2-14, 2011. It was a proud day for all those involved. The “Walk for Literacy” planning committee is already planning to expand the scope of the walk in 2011 based on the positive feedback of the last two years. GOYA and GLP extend their sincerest “thank yous” to everyone who supported this year’s event–together we are creating and fostering a culture of empowerment and education by providing literacy reading programs, supplies and awareness. Join us next year…ask us HOW!?

Brooklyn Middle School 131 Supports “Books for Brainfills, NOT Landfills” by Recycling Texts

A BIG Thank You to Middle School 131 in Brooklyn, New York. Early this year, the school donated over five thousand science, math, English and general reading books to the Global Literacy Project. Ms. Walsh, a teacher at the school coordinated the donation. Volunteers Kuixi and Xian were on hand to help move boxes of books into the Global Literacy van. Kudos to Ms. Walsh, volunteers Kuixi and Xian and to the administrators at the Brooklyn Middle School.

Ethan Briere Believes in Relationships that Lead to Transformative Action

This past April, on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah, Ethan Briere contemplated the fact that Judaism focuses on relationships. However, it also focuses on the importance of actions over the mere mouthing of statements. As such, for the significant transition marked by his turning thirteen, Ethan initiated a wide ranging community book drive and fundraiser, drawing his entire community near and far into a new relationship with the idea of enabling change for South African students in GLP’s “Shack to Scholarship” initiative. This culminated  in June with a collection of several hundred books–enough to supply a half dozen classrooms–along with enough funds to ship the packed pallets out to South Africa.

Today, several hundred students in our Randfontein locations are transforming lives through the new international relationship enabled by the important action that Ethan took. Ethan, toda raba.

Shannon McNamara looks to “SHARE” educational success with African girls

Shannon (second from left) with GLP's Emeka Akaezuwa

It is not always easy to share. Not so with Shannon Hill McNamara, 17. Shannon, a resident of New Jersey and a 2010 Governor Jefferson’s award winner, founded Shannon’s After-school Reading Exchange (SHARE). SHARE, www.shareinafrica.org, is a New Jersey-based nonprofit organization that seeks to empower African girls through education.

Shannon’s passion about reading and her belief in gender equality continues to drive her to help girls her age in Africa. Since 2008 when she founded SHARE, Shannon and a cadre of volunteers have spent months collecting, sorting, labeling and boxing thousands of books and school supplies for African girls, primarily in Tanzania.

Expanding SHARE’s coverage in June of 2010, the Global Literacy Project received over fourteen thousand books from the organization. GLP continued to extend Shannon’s vision by donating the books to girls from the townships around our program sites.

Student at Carroll Shaw Farm with books from SHARE donation

GLP looks forward to partnering with SHARE in the future. We were also delighted to learn that Shannon, along with two other recipients from China and South Korea, were honored by the United Nations for “significant contributions to humanitarian goals” at the Youth Achievement Assembly on August 6, 2010 in New York City.

Volunteers Receive N.J. State Governor’s Jefferson Awards

Anne DeLaney, Olubayi Olubayi, NJ Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, Chloe Carver, and Douglass Schoenberger-Verizon NJ

On April 28 the Global Literacy Project celebrated the recognition of volunteers Emma Carver and her sister Chloe Carver by the N.J. State Governor’s Jefferson Awards for Volunteerism at NJ PAC in Newark.

The program featured Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno who joined members of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Volunteerism, staff of the Governor’s Office of Volunteerism, the Star Ledger and the Community Foundation of New Jersey at the first NJ Governor’s Jefferson Awards.

Out of the 1,044 applications received, 19 individuals and 3 groups were honored for their outstanding volunteer work throughout the state of NJ on .

Through their ongoing work with the Global Literacy Project, the sisters have provided books, built classrooms, remodeled libraries, and created literacy support programs for sites Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. As a result of their particular efforts in South Africa, Emma and Chloe received the Jefferson Award for Volunteerism in the category of Education, Arts & History—recognizing volunteers who “provide classroom and/or after-school programs, enrichment opportunities, tutoring, or other academic support that would enhance the student’s ability to succeed.”

Previously, Linda Bowden, President of PNC Northern New Jersey (a corporate sponsor of the awards), has noted that  ”The New Jersey State Governor’s Jefferson Awards honor ordinary people who, through volunteer service, do extraordinary things for other people, their community, their nation, or the environment.”

Sam Beard (co-founder of the Jefferson Awards), Honoree Chloe Carver, Honoree Emma Carver, and Nominator Anne DeLaney

Each year the awards are presented nationally and locally to individuals who do extraordinary things without expectation of recognition or reward.

Read article here: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/nj_volunteers_honored_with_nj.html

Jenni Struthers Connects Her North Carolina Community to South Africa

Jenni working at the GLP warehouse

Students at two primary schools in Gauteng Province, South Africa were delighted to receive books in 2009 that were donated by a then new GLP supporter, Jenni Struthers. Jenni and several friends and classmates (all living in North Carolina) began collecting books in response to a request from Christina Vanech and Emma Carver, acquaintances of Jenni, who spent a semester in South Africa in the fall of 2009.

This year, Jenni doubly surprised the South African students when she conducted another community book drive, this time making a special attempt to collect several copies of the same books to enhance their use in the South African classrooms. She even came all the way from North Carolina to the Global Literacy Project’s warehouse in Hillside, New Jersey to sort the books and get them ready for shipment to South Africa.

During the summer 2010 Global Learning Expedition to South Africa, the GLP volunteers distributed Jenni’s books  into classroom libraries at Zuurbekom Intermediate School and at Thabisile Primary School.

Randfontein Primary School students with books sent by Jenni Struthers

A number of students also received several of the books as prizes for high academic performance during the school year. Many of the South African students mentioned that Jenni was really a special person as even after her friends had returned to the USA, she still thought of them.

At GLP we’re not surprised, especially after seeing the way Jenni focused on working at the warehouse preparing the shipment. Jenni fulfills our definition of “Global Citizen.”

We all say “Thank You” Jenni!

Planning for 2010 South Africa Trip

The Pingry School is planning a summer 2010 service trip to South Africa. The Pingry School and the Global Literacy Project are excited to offer students the opportunity to connect across continents and cultures. The student volunteers will be traveling to South Africa mid summer to help create a school library as well as a community literacy program in the Guateng province. Look out for future updates.

Supporters Brave Weather to Celebrate 2009 “Walk for Literacy”

Walkers support Global Literacy

The fall weather was brisk and organizers feared that it would rain but a break in the weather allowed over 25 organizations, family groups, and other interested individuals to follow the scenic route. In fact it made for a wonderful sense of solidarity and excitement among all the walkers.

Funds raised from the walk will assist in expanding our local “Take Reading Home” programs in New Jersey as well as GLP’s innovative “Classroom Connections” program that links South African and Kenyan school children with New Jersey students. The program also trains the teachers teaches them how to introduce fundamental ideas of human rights and common aspirations that all students share in the classroom. By raising their awareness of children’s and women’s rights, students and teachers can begin to address these issues in their wider communities.

Group encourages students to ‘R.E.A.D.’

September 13, 2009: Rutgers University, NJ.- As the academic year begins, students may look through their syllabi and realize their required readings include nothing they actually want to read. But Artemus Werts is offering some alternatives.
Werts, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, founded the R.E.A.D. book club, an acronym for Read, Engage and Discuss. “[The club is] really just about reading a book and being able to discuss it with a group of peers,” Werts said. The mission of R.E.A.D. is to provide an arena for the analysis of literature outside of a classroom setting, he said.

In addition to holding conversations about the books, the club plans to advance literacy around the world through cooperation with the Global Literacy Project, a non-profit organization that works to help provide books and build libraries abroad, Werts said.

See story here ->http://www.dailytargum.com/university/student-involvement/group-encourages-students-to-r-e-a-d-1.1876039