The "Branching Out with Books Project" is awarded the Charles R. Wood Foundation

The Charles R. Wood Foundation has awarded St. Lawrence University a grant to launch, in partnership with SUNY Potsdam, a youth literacy initiative.  Entitled "Branching Out with Books," the project will promote high quality, targeted early literacy education in the North Country. The project will enable faculty, staff, and students at St. Lawrence University and SUNY Potsdam to address a key community need of the North Country - that of increasing literacy.

Literacy of New York, a nonprofit organization that provides adult basic literacy and English language tutoring in St. Lawrence Country, estimates "that nearly one in five adults in St. Lawrence Country has trouble reading the newspaper, cannot fill out a job application, and cannot add up the prices of several purchases."  To combat this hardship, "Branching Out with Books" will build upon small literacy outreach programs already in place at Jefferson Elementary school in Massena and Hermon-DeKalb Central School and establish a new reading program at the Akwesasne Library on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. Graduate students and undergraduates from both universities will travel to the program sites weekly to serve as after-school reading mentors; engage children in literacy activities using books, art materials, and other resources; and provide the children with books they can take home to read in their families.  The project will directly benefit over 50 children weekly, with the potential to have a positive impact on hundreds more.

"Branching Out with Books" will be directed by Brenda Papineau, Director of Community Based Learning Programs at St. Lawrence, and Tina Wilson Bush, Director of the Rebecca V. Sheard Literacy Center at SUNY Potsdam.