Literacy – ArtsEd4All

January 21, 2020 artsed4all Arts Education, Literary Arts, Philanthropy

2020 MLK Day & Blake Mini Library

Today, January 20, 2020, marks the 25th anniversary of the MLK Day of Service. Observed each year on the third Monday in January as “a day on, not a day off,” MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities.

Each year, the Blake Mini Library book drive kicks off on the MLK Day of Service, collecting through Valentine’s Day. The project encourages and supports the caring acts of children who work with their communities to collect books for the Hamilton Families shelter program here in San Francisco. This youth philanthropy effort supports the reading, writing and science literacy of children ages birth to 21 living in homes for runaways, homeless shelters and foster care. The project began in 2013, when a 6-year old boy named Blake Ansari began a book drive in New York City with the support of his family and friends.

In 2020, we invite friends and families to share acts of compassion and creativity, in celebration of the 5th annual Blake Mini Library Book Drive in San Francisco.

Students can participate by:

Donating or collecting books.
Help to spread the news about the 2020 Blake Mini Library Book Drive by using your creativity to make posters, or public service announcements.
Recommend book titles that other children would enjoy reading
Write a book review about a book that you would like to recommended for donation.
Make a Valentine or write a Note of Encouragement to hide inside a book.
Support the processing of books in advance of the delivery to the Hamilton Families shelter on Read Across America Day (3/2/2020).

Adults can support students by:

Donating your new and recently new books (no cloth books please) to children from birth to age 21.
Sponsor a book title inspired by our 2020 theme: “Breaking Barriers”
When donating a book, write a Note of Encouragement, a special surprise message that is hidden inside the book to be discovered by a future reader.
Record an audio read-aloud version of a book that can be enjoyed by beginning readers.
Learn more about the issue of homelessness and the impacts on children and finding ways to help. Baharav, H., Leos-Urbel, J., Obradovic, J., & Bardack, S. (2017). The Educational Success of Homeless and Highly Mobile Students in San Francisco Unified School District. Stanford, CA. John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, Stanford Graduate School of Education.
Inspire children by showing that you support their efforts.

“When you listen to the community, learn from the community, and help the community, you connect to your best self”

– Blake Ansari, founder of Blake Mini Library

#blakeminilibrary #‎youthphilanthropy #‎literacy #nomorehomelesschildren

March 2, 2018April 3, 2018 artsed4all Arts Education, Literary Arts, Media Arts, Philanthropy, Technology, Visual Arts

Valentine’s Day 2018 Blake Mini Library Book Drive

In 2018, we kicked off our 3rd annual Blake Mini Library Book Drive on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, and invited readers of all ages to help by writing notes of encouragement and donating a new or newly read children’s book to the children at Hamilton Families. On Read Across America Day (March 2, 2018) we donated 529 books, filled with handwritten notes of encouragement, including some special author autographs. Ms. Woo’s fourth graders accepted the Blake Mini Library Mannequin Challenge, and constructed and donated the LEGO “VR Library of the Future.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Rooftop Spirit for Harriet’s Spirit: #monumentalwomen

20180206BlakeMiniLIbraryIMG_5379 This year, our book drive coincided with a world premiere opera — Opera Parallele’s production of Harriet’s Spirit, featuring a cast of eighth grade students from Rooftop School. The opera was set in both present day middle school and on the Combahee River during the Civil War, when Harriet Tubman become the first woman to plan and conduct a military raid.

In conjunction with Harriet’s Spirit, we honored Harriet Tubman and some of our other favorite “Monumental Women” with a curated collection of children’s books:

Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry
Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race
by Margot Lee Shetterly
Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed The World by Rachel Ignotofsky
Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines by Jeanne Walker Harvey
The World Is Not a Rectangle: A Portrait of Architect Zaha Hadid by Jeanette Winter
Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prévot
Coral Reefs by Sylvia Earle
Rickie and Henry by Jane Goodall
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers
Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers & Shawn Harris
Rickshaw Girl and You Bring The Distant Near by Mitali Perkins
Can Art Change the World? by JR

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Connect to Your Best Self

Rooftop students were thrilled to be the very first recipients of a Blake Mini Library mini-grant from the Connect to Your Best Self Foundation. The grant enabled us to host a cookie and blue marble gratitude party for the children at Hamilton Families. As Ms. Kennedy’s 4th graders prepared for the cookie party, they made origami boxes for the blue marbles and wrapped copies of the Blue Marble coloring book, Rolling Along on A Blue Marble Dream. They also worked together to write a new story.

20180302BlakeMiniLIbraryIMG_6375

“If you give a mouse a cookie and a blue marble…”

If you give a mouse a cookie, the mouse might enjoy a tiny blue marble too. If she eats the cookie (and another and another and another), she might turn blue like the marble. You could give her a glass of milk, but she might drink and turn the milk blue too. She also might throw up, but then at least she won’t be blue anymore. But she might get hyper and need to run around outside. You could take her outside and let her run around the grass field five times, but she might get a side stitch after eating so many cookies. If she lays down and passes out, you could run to get a glass of cold water and chuck it at her to wake her up. When she wakes up, she might see a blue-eyed wolf. If the wolf comes closer and closer and closer, the mouse might run faster and faster and faster. If the mouse runs really fast back to you, be sure to open the door to let her in. She will be happy to be safe with her cookie, her blue marble… and you!
— A “rolling” cookie party story by Ms. Kennedy’s 4th grade class of 2018

20180302BlakeMiniLIbraryIMG_E6435 20180131BlakeMiniLIbraryIMG_5166

I 💙 U So Much!

Thank you to Blake Mini Library founder Blake Ansari, The Connect To Your Best Self Fund, and many our generous donors and youth philanthropists who made this year’s book drive a special celebration for all involved.

20180302BlakeMiniLIbraryIMG_6406

April 1, 2017April 1, 2017 artsed4all Arts Education, Literary Arts

International Children’s Book Day 2017

Since 1967, on or around Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday on April 2nd, International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.

Each year a different National Section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of International Children’s Book Day. It decides upon a theme and invites a prominent author from the host country to write a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator to design a poster.

Let Us Grow with The Book!

poster_02.04.2017.jpg

What a joy to hold a new book in one’s hands! At first you don’t know what the book is about. You resist the temptation to open the last page. And how good it smells! It is impossible to divide this smell into components: printing ink, glue… no, it is not. There is a particular smell of a book, an exciting and unique one. The tips of some pages would stick together as if the book had not woken up yet. It wakes up when you start reading it…

This year’s ICBD message comes from poet/author Sergey Makhotin and illustrator Mikhail Fedorov of IBBY Russia.

“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” — Hans Christian Andersen

While many readers may be familiar with Anderson’s Fairy Tales, they may be unaware that Anderson’s works have become more widespread than any other author ever (only the Bible has been translated into more languages). Anderson grew up poor in Odense, Denmark, the only son of Hans, a self-educated shoemaker and Anne Marie, an illiterate washerwoman. For most of his childhood he lived in poverty with his parents in their one-room home. Learn how Anderson’s vivid imagination and love of the theater helped him to escape the lowest ranks of society at Hans Christian Anderson Centre and the British Library’s Online Gallery.

https://archive.org/stream/FairyTalesByHansChristianAnderson?ui=embed

KPMG’s Family for Literacy partners with First Book

On Wednesday, March 22nd, KPMG, through its KPMG’s Family for Literacy (KFFL) program, partnered with First Book to bring 10,000 brand new, FREE books to young San Francisco readers.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was a great event, hosted by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Wonderfully organized, the KPMG’s Family for Literacy Book Fair was ably supported by a helpful team of volunteers. A big thank you to Chi and Thor, who helped with packing and loading eight boxes of children’s books for delivery.

20170322Chi & ThorIMG_1720

Did you know?

More than half of U.S. public school students live in low-income households.¹

In some of the lowest income neighborhoods, there is just one book for every 300 children.²

Two-thirds of children from low-income families lack access to books.³

79 percent of fourth graders from low-income households do not read proficiently – a key predictor of a child’s future educational and economic success.⁴

Poor educational outcomes are tied to poverty, unemployment, illness, dependence on welfare, social exclusion and crime.⁵

https://www.firstbook.org/about-first-book/understand-the-need

January 30, 2017January 30, 2017 artsed4all Arts Education, Literary Arts, Media Arts, Technology, Visual Arts

Valentine’s Day 2017 Blake Mini Library Book Drive

Give the gift of reading to a child in need.

On Valentine’s Day Blake Mini Library donates books to children and youth living in domestic violence, homeless, foster care and runaway youth shelters. The students at Rooftop Alternative PreK-8 School are currently joining Blake Ansari’s efforts to bring the joy of reading to homeless children. Students are helping to fill the rainbow-colored shelves of the Blake Mini Library at Hamilton Families in San Francisco.

Book donations will be received by The Studios at Rooftop School’s Burnett & Mayeda Campuses, starting from MLK, Jr. Day of Service through Valentine’s Day, when the books will be delivered to Hamilton Families in the Tenderloin.

Please consider donating your new and recently new books (no cloth books, please) to children from birth to age 21.

Remember that literacy plays an important role for children and families. Especially in times of crisis, it can provide a bridge for individuals to find refuge in stories of others’ experiences (MacGillivray, 2010b). — “Supporting the Literacy Development of Children Living in Homeless Shelters” http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/education_articles/3/

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Include a Note of Encouragement

With the 2016 Valentine’s Day Blake Mini Library book drive, Rooftop School invited book donors to include a Note of Encouragement, a special surprise message hidden inside the book to be discovered by a future reader. The reading and writing of these notes helped create a special bond between two people who might never ever meet — the donor and the recipient. The Notes of Encouragement added an element of surprise and delight, while conveying positive thoughts of love, hope and gratitude.

“There’s a Whole New World in Your Book”

As a child who loves to read, Blake Ansari wanted to make sure that the homeless children had access to books. At the age of six, Blake began his youth philanthropy effort by donating 600 books to the PATH emergency family shelter in the Bronx in 2014.

On Valentine’s Day 2015, seven-year old Blake donated over 5,000 books along with a four ft. tall rainbow colored Blake Mini Library to children who are homeless living at Women In Need Glenwood Shelter in Brooklyn, New York. In 2016, Hamilton Families, San Francisco and Riverside Church Food Pantry, New York City were recipients of Blake Mini Library. This year, Leake & Watts Mother & Child Foster Care is the 2017 recipient of a Blake Mini LIbrary.

Blake’s mother, Dr. Starita Boyce Ansari, supports her son’s efforts to help underprivileged youth. Believing in the power of youth philanthrophy, Dr. Ansari offers us the model of giving circles, which meld responsiveness and altruism with community engagement, nurturing our students’ humanity. “Giving circles have shown the highest potential. A giving circle nurtures students appreciation and understanding of others’ needs, enabling them to come together to support charitable organizations or community initiatives for a set period of time. Their members become more aware of and engaged in the causes they fund, and learn how to make our world better, not just for them, but for all.”

To quote Blake: “When you listen to the community, learn from the community, and help the community, you connect to your best self.”

bml-2017

January 19, 2016January 28, 2016 artsed4all Arts Education, Literary Arts, Uncategorized

Susty Kids & Blake Mini Library Valentine’s Day 2016 Book Drive

“When you listen to the community, learn from the community, and help the community, you connect to your best self.”

December 2013, at the age of six, Blake Ansari decided to help end poverty by donating a Blake Mini Library to homeless shelters and food banks. Blake Mini Library supports the reading, writing and science literacy of children ages birth to 21 living in homes for runaways, homeless shelters and foster care. On Valentine’s Day 2015, Blake Mini Library donated 6,000 books to Women in Need, Inc., Brooklyn, New York. This 2016 Valentine’s Day recipients of Blake Mini Library are Hamilton Family Center, San Francisco and Riverside Church Food Pantry, New York City.

This year, Susty Kids, Inc. joins Blake Mini Library to help improve the literacy of homeless children in San Francisco.

Our Coast-to-Coast Blake Mini Library book drive officially begins on Monday, January 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Please join us by donating new and recently new books (no cloth books) to children from birth to age 21. Give children who are homeless a Blake Mini Library.

For additional information contact: blakedesouza@verizon.net or 646-285-1068

Like and Share Susty Kids, Inc. and Blake Mini Library book drive successes on Facebook.

#blakeminilibrary #‎youthphilanthropy‬ #‎literacy‬

#nomorehomelesschildren #‎youwillgotocollege

Click for a downloadable Blake Mini Library Flier

‬Additional Information & Resources:

The rising cost of living and stagnant wages of New York City has resulted in The City having the highest number of children in America living in homeless shelters. Forty percent of shelter residents are children.

In San Francisco, the technology boom has displaced working-families for high income young professionals. San Francisco has the second highest rate of homeless children in the nation. Thirty percent of San Francisco’s homeless are children.

Opening Doors, updated and amended in 2015, is the nation’s first comprehensive Federal strategy to prevent and end homelessness. Goals include preventing and ending homelessness for families with children and youth in 2020.

https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/USICH_OpeningDoors_Amendment2015_FINAL.pdf