Recent Grants

The first-ever grants from the Education and Literacy Fund were awarded on October 18, 2007, at the Alliance’s annual dinner. Grants totaling nearly $132,000 — ranging from $650 to $15,000 — were awarded to fifteen not-for-profit organizations serving early childhood literacy throughout Southwestern Indiana.

The goals of the Education and Literacy Fund’s initial round of grantmaking were to expose children—from babies to preschoolers—to books, to begin or expand their home libraries, to involve parents in developing their children’s reading habits, and to lay a foundation for the life-long love of reading and learning. Grants were awarded to:

4C of Southern Indiana

$10,000 for the Dialogic Reading Project to provide information about dialogic reading techniques to families and childcare providers as well as books for children through 4C’s programming.

Ark Crisis Child Care Center

$3,930 to establish the Book Ark Project, which will allow Ark to buy books for a new lending library, start a new book club, and host workshops for parents to help them cultivate their children’s love of reading.

Carver Community Organization

$15,000 to establish the Early Learning Outreach Program, which includes free books to participating families, twice-weekly reading circles, and a resource center for parents and caregivers.

Cedar Hall Elementary School

$7,515 for the school’s Literacy Links Program, which will buy books and resources for workshops that teach parents the dialogic reading method and impress upon them the importance of reading to their preschoolers.

Community Action Program of Evansville and Vanderburgh County

$15,000 to establish the Read Together – Reach for the Stars Program, which includes free books and workshops for parents of children enrolled in Head Start programs in Gibson, Posey and Vanderburgh counties.

Early Childhood Development Coalition

$10,000 to increase the number of children enrolled in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program at Deaconess Women’s Hospital.

Easter Seals Rehabilitation Center

$6,000 to establish the Early Reading Program, which will provide books and other literacy materials for preschool classrooms, free books for home libraries, and computer software for children with vision impairment or other disabilities.

Lincoln Hills Development Corporation

$8,000 to establish Project READ, which includes free books and literacy activities for children and families enrolled in Perry and Spencer county Head Start programs.

Otwell Elementary School

$15,000 to establish the Kindergarten Literacy Project, which includes free books for students to read and share with their parents, a new lending library, family literacy events, and field trips to bookstores where students can select and buy their own books.

Pace Community Action Agency

$6,000 for the Head Start Literacy Expansion Project, which will increase the number of books in classrooms, update the agency’s lending and traveling libraries, add books as an option at the parenting incentive store, and provide free books during the Family Literacy Night program.

Perry Central Community School Corporation

$12,600 to establish the Reading Begins at Home Project, which will provide free books for families through Head Start and community outreach programs as well as new book clubs and literacy events for parents and children.

St. Vincent’s Day Care Center

$5,400 for the Classroom Library Project, which will provide multicultural book sets for eighteen classrooms of children from babies to preschoolers.

Tri-Cap

$15,000 for the Head Start Early Literacy Initiative, which will buy books for home libraries, backpacks filled with school supplies to help preschoolers transition to kindergarten, and books for parents to help them prepare their preschoolers for kindergarten.

Washington Catholic Early Childhood Development Program

$653 for the Literacy Improvement Project, which will buy books and other literacy tools to develop student reading and language skills and provide the Lullabies to Literacy Workshop for staff and parents.

WNIN

$1,645 for the Parenting Counts Literacy Program, which will provide the Ready to Learn Workshop to English- and Spanish-speaking foster parents in Southwestern Indiana and free books for their foster children.