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Activate: National Early Childhood Advocacy Network

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Stephanie Harmon                                                          Diamond Miles

 

In November, Stephanie Harmon and Diamond Miles were selected to represent the Read Muskegon Literacy Collaborative as part of a new initiative launched by the National Center for Families Learning (NCLF).  Activate: National Early Childhood Advocacy Network is bringing together teams of parents and early childhood practitioners from 10 communities throughout the country to reimagine and reform equitable systems for families.  Stephanie and Diamond travelled to Dallas for the program kick-off and returned full of energy, ideas and connections. They will each be a part of a national cohort of other parents and practitioners that are working on the same focus area and will also meet monthly with NCFL and Read Muskegon staff for support.  Diamond will be participating in a group looking at the connections between mental and physical health as related to early literacy and childhood racial inequities. Stephanie’s group will be focused on the school to prison pipeline.  We are so thankful to both of these women for stepping up to take on this work and excited to support them in their efforts.

 

Expanding Early Literacy Classes for 2022

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For the last five years, Read Muskegon’s ABCs of Cooking class has been providing parents a fun, easy and delicious way to incorporate early literacy skill building into daily life with their 0-5 year olds. With the goal of helping to prepare children to enter kindergarten ready to learn, families in this class learn letter shapes and sounds as they create toddler-friendly recipes.  Based on the success of this program, Read Muskegon is expanding the concept to include two new classes for 2022.  The ABCs of Art will help parents learn how to build early literacy skills through simple art projects. The ABCs of Song and Sounds will be for those families who have completed the cooking or art class and will use music to dig deeper into foundational literacy skills.  Classes will be offered at various venues throughout Muskegon County beginning in February.  Look for a calendar and registration information coming soon.

Thank you to the Great Start Collaborative and United Way of the Lakeshore for making these classes possible.

National Model Program Coming to Muskegon Heights

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Beginning in early 2022, Read Muskegon, in partnership with the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL), will bring the researched-based Family Service Learning program to Muskegon Heights.  This program is a national model focused on project based learning through community-led service. It has been shown to engage families in building content knowledge, work-based skills, leadership skills, and in increasing self-efficacy and social networks.  After piloting the program for 8 weeks with 10 families in Muskegon Heights, Read Muskegon hopes to expand to a year round program offered throughout Muskegon County.

Thank you to the Community Foundation for Muskegon County for their support in bringing this innovative literacy program to our community.

Literacy Collaborative Community Summit: What Happened? What Comes Next?

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On February 23rd, over 100 community members joined together to focus their collective wisdom, creative problem-solving skills, and resources to tackle the literacy crisis that exists in Muskegon County.  Here’s a brief recap of the event and an opportunity to get involved.



Melissa Moore, Read Muskegon’s Executive Director, started by sharing some statistics to create a vision of the literacy landscape in Muskegon County. “Illiteracy is one of the most complex, interconnected, and deeply-rooted issues we face as a nation, ” Moore said. “It’s an issue of social justice, because those who cannot read cannot equally participate in our society.” She challenged attendees to be “disrupters” in the generational cycle of illiteracy.




Sharon Darling, founder and CEO of the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL), applauded Muskegon County for their collaborative efforts to tackle illiteracy and said she would like to see it become a model for the nation. She called literacy the stem of the flower whose petals are issues like welfare, health care, and criminal justice reform that rely on the strong base of literacy to keep blooming. She noted that while our country’s literacy statistics have been going backwards, we know what to do and the time is now to start doing it.




 


Poppy Sias-Hernandez, Equity & Inclusion Officer for Governor Whitmer, remarked that equity is the outcome of diversity and inclusion and that we need to continue our efforts to create equitable education and other systems that support everyone. She said that equity happens through collective efforts, when people bring their grit, talent and resources to the creation of solutions.


 




 


Rosa Guzman-Snyder, Director of Community Development for NCFL, presented a timeline of the work that has been done by the literacy collaborative and the vision for moving forward.  She set the stage for attendees to participate in breakout room conversations focused on 3 areas as they relate to tackling illiteracy: Economic Opportunity & Workforce Development: coordination of adult learning opportunities leading to family-sustaining wages, Education: mobilizing as a community to support our schools and ensure families have what they need to help their children succeed, and Neighborhoods & Community Leadership: utilizing existing networks to bridge the gap between needs and services. Input from the breakout sessions will be used by the collaborative work groups to create short and long-term action plans.


 


Breakout Session Summaries


You can read summaries of each of the sessions and the “BIG IDEAS” that started to emerge by clicking the links below.

























Education Summary


Economic Opportunity Summary


Neighborhoods & Community Leadership Summary


 


Are YOU ready to be part of the SOLUTION? 


It’s going to take all of us working together to create real, sustainable change. Click the link below to sign up for a Read Muskegon Literacy Collaborative work group or to share a “Big Idea”.


 


CLICK HERE TO GET INVOLVED




	New Staff: Welcome Andre & Mike!				
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We are excited to welcome two new staff members to the Read Muskegon family.


 




Andre Pierce, Program Assistant


Andre brings a variety of skills and experiences to Read Muskegon that will be valuable in helping us to continue to grow our programs and reach those who most need our services.  A graduate of Muskegon Heights High School, Andre previously worked as a Community Health Connector for Hackley Community Care where he was responsible for connecting inmates in the Muskegon County Jail with critical resources that they would need upon release such as health care, insurance and housing.  At Read Muskegon, Andre will help us reach deeper into our local communities to recruit, train and support both learners and volunteers.  He will also help to coordinate our Family Literacy programs and the Project Fatherhood Book Club.


 




Mike Wyant, Adult Literacy Instructor


Mike brings years of classroom experience and a passion for teaching non-traditional learners to his new role at Read Muskegon.  He interjects his teaching with personal experiences like his love for history and his adventures at NASA’s Space Camp.  Mike teaches our Job Skills and English as a Second Language classes at Read Muskegon.  You’ll also find him out in the community teaching our workforce development & functional literacy classes at the EXIT program, Muskegon County Jail, and West MI Works.  On Tuesday evenings, he oversees our Drop-In Tutoring program for K-12 students and their parents.


	Read Muskegon Launches Countywide Literacy Collaborative				
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Muskegon County is clearly on the move, but over 20,000 adults in our community are at a virtual standstill because they cannot read well enough to fill out a job or housing application, read safety information in the workplace, follow healthcare instructions, or read to their children and grandchildren. The literacy statistics are even more staggering for our children.  Less than 50% of our 5-year-olds enter kindergarten ready to learn and more than 60% of our incoming 4th graders are not reading at grade level.


 


There is a literacy crisis in Muskegon County and it is time to take dramatic, focused action to combat it.


 


We know that no single education system, government agency or non-profit organization can independently resolve this issue.  That’s why Read Muskegon is leading a countywide effort to develop a results-oriented literacy collaborative dedicated to combating the illiteracy crisis through collective impact. Together, Read Muskegon and its extensive network of collaborative partners are focused on ensuring that all individuals in need of improved literacy skills, no matter their age, have access to the information and resources they need to succeed.


 


The collaborative includes a broad spectrum of community partners including: the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District, Community Foundation for Muskegon County, MI Reading Corps, Mercy Health – Community Health Project, Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office, Muskegon Community College, Baker College, Goodwill, United Way, Talent 2025, Chamber of Commerce, Region 4 Adult Education, West MI Works, White Lake Community Education, Muskegon Area District Libraries, Hackely Public Library, Urban League, and city & state government officials.  Equally as important, we are actively engaging resident voices as members and leaders of the collaborative.


 


Over the past 12 months, collaborative members have been working in partnership with the National Center for Families Learning to assess the literacy landscape in Muskegon County through interviews, surveys and community focus groups. What did we find?  We’re doing a lot of things right and we’ve got a lot of great programs ready to support our communities.  But, we also found a lot of gaps in service and systemic challenges that are creating barriers to success for our most vulnerable learners, across their life span.


 




 


85 individuals gathered last September to review the findings and prioritize next steps.  As a result, three initial action teams were formed. The Collaborative Steering Committee has been focused on creating the mission, vision and structure for the group. The Public Awareness team will work on creating a campaign to increase the general public understanding of illiteracy and connect community members to services. The Integrated Continuum of Services team is working to ensure a seamless transition from birth through adult literacy supports with a focus on family literacy and breaking generational cycles.


 




The next meeting of the collaborative will take place on Thursday, March 26th, from 9:30-12:00. If you are interested in more information, please contact Melissa Moore. 231-830-5539 or Melissa.moore@readmuskegon.org.


 


 


	Project Fatherhood Book Club				
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“Just because it’s easier to build strong children than repair broken men, doesn’t mean we leave men broken.”  – Jason Wilson, Cry Like A Man


 


Literacy is about more than the ability to read words. It’s about using the power of those words to change the course of your life: to participate in your community, to achieve your goals, to create a better future for your children. That is the foundation of the Project Fatherhood Book Club, a weekly gathering of fathers hosted by Read Muskegon that engages men in reading books that provoke intense and often difficult conversations with a goal of changing life outcomes for the participants, their children and their larger community.


In 2010, former gang member turned community activist Big Mike Cummings asked UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap to co-lead a group of men struggling to be better fathers in Watts, South LA, a neighborhood long burdened with a legacy of racialized poverty, violence, and incarceration. These men came together each week to help one another answer the question ‘How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?’ The book Project Fatherhood follows the lives of the men as they struggle with the pain of their own losses, the pressures of poverty and unemployment, and the desire to do better for the next generation. Recognizing similar struggles exist for men here in Muskegon County, the book became the inspiration for Read Muskegon’s Project Fatherhood Book Club.


 


          


 


 


The Project Fatherhood Book Club began in 2019 with a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion grant from the Anton Family Fund of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County. They funded the first 8-week session. As the group grew, the dads let us know that the book club needed to continue. Read Muskegon, along with our partner, Dads on Deck, has committed to making that happen.  Our focus is to empower participants to break the generational cycles of illiteracy, incarceration and poverty.


The Project Fatherhood Book Club meets in 8-week sessions with each session focused on a book selected by the participants.  Shared reading aloud from the book, discussion, and journaling are be incorporated into each session with a focus on using written text as the catalyst for processing difficult issues, expressing thoughts and feelings in a constructive manner, and setting personal goals. Read Muskegon’s instructor facilitates the process of shared reading in a way that is sensitive to all reading levels. Each week also incorporates a guest speaker or shared information that focuses on one of the social determinants of health such as: the importance of physical & mental health, cooperative parenting, father activity/fun time, financial literacy & stability, advocacy and engagement in children’s education. Participants who would like to receive extra reading support can meet one on one with a Read Muskegon tutor or staff member.


We need the financial support of our community to make this happen. Our goal is to raise $10,000 to support the book club through 2020. Funds will cover books, food, facilitators, materials, and family & community events developed by the dads. Please consider supporting this group of fathers who are working hard to change the outcomes for the next generation.


Click Here to Donate 


 




	Ribbon Cutting Marks Opening of Family Literacy Center				
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While Read Muskegon has been running programs from our new space at 26 E. Broadway since June, 2017, we marked the official opening of our new Family Literacy Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony in October.   Muskegon Heights Mayor, Kim Sims, and MAISD Superintendent, John Severson, spoke about the importance of our partnerships before the Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce helped officiate the ribbon cutting.  We were thrilled to have so many members of our community join in our celebration.


         


 


	Experience Read Muskegon: A Conversation About Literacy				
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Join us at our new Family Literacy Center at 26 E. Broadway for a one-hour conversation. Learn how adult illiteracy is impacting our county. Find out how Read Muskegon is breaking generational cycles of illiteracy through customized programs that meet the unique needs of our learners. Tour our new location and learn how it will play a critical role in our mission.


June 22 8:30 am     June 22 4:30 pm


July 11 10:00 am     July 11 4:30 pm


July 20 8:00 am     July 20 5:00 pm


Aug 3 10:00 am     Aug 3 4:30 pm


RSVP to Tish Williams:


tish.williams@readmuskegon.org    231-747-7273


www.readmuskegon.org


 


 


 


 


	Spring 2017 Newsletter				
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Our Spring 2017 Newsletter is all about our move to Muskegon Heights and the opening of our Family Literacy Center.  Click on the link below to read all about it!


 


 


Spring 2017 Newsletter