It takes a village to raise a reader.
At the Cabrillo Arts Pavilion on Monday, education leaders and elected officials celebrated the power of reading at the annual Santa Barbara Education Foundation’s “Love of Literacy” luncheon, a fundraiser for reading initiatives in Santa Barbara Unified.
“Whether we’re funding partnerships or bringing people together, our goal is the same: to create more opportunities for students to succeed,” said Vanessa Pelton, executive director of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation.
Guests ranged from local elected officials including First District Santa Barbara County Supervisor Roy Lee to youth-serving business owners Joseph Evers of Lobster Jo’s Beach Camp and Nancy Martz of Apples to Zucchini Cooking School. The over 100 attendees enjoyed presentations from educational leaders over a sandwich lunch and a perched view of East Beach.
Funds from the luncheon will go toward Readers Are Leaders, an initiative led by Partners in Education — a nonprofit partner of the Santa Barbara County Education Office — that sends volunteers to five Santa Barbara Unified schools to provide reading support to students in transitional kindergarten through third grade. The luncheon will also support ongoing training for educators who teach reading.
The event has so far met $11,000 of its $30,000 fundraiser goal.
Staff and volunteers from Santa Barbara Unified, including outgoing Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and Partners in Education Executive Director Chelsea Duffy, spoke to the progress of literacy efforts in the district and the overall “magic of reading.”
“This program is not claiming to be a silver bullet, but the one thing that helps kids,” Duffy said about Readers Are Leaders. “It’s truly lifting up and supporting multiple literacy efforts that are already in motion. It’s creating the capacity and bandwidth needed for that new curriculum and teacher training.”
The volunteer-based Readers Are Leaders initiative this year has sent nearly 50 reading support volunteers — 80% of them UC Santa Barbara students — to TK-3rd classrooms at Santa Barbara Community Academy, Adams, Cleveland, McKinley and Monroe elementary schools.
Maldonado said the district is working diligently to support literacy through partnerships and leadership training.
“Every piece of this ecosystem, from teacher training to volunteer support, is built so that no student falls through the cracks or remains unseen,” Maldonado said.
She added that attendees should not be alarmed at the district not having a 100% literacy rate because of English-learner students and students with learning disabilities.
“We also want to be mindful not to shame children on their way to mastering literacy,” Maldonado said. “Some of them take a little bit longer than others, and every number represents a story.”
