Sooke Literacy

BOOK BIN PROGRAM | SOOKE STORIES ACROSS THE AGES | PORT RENFREW READING CLUB

Book Bin Program

Books for EVERYONE, free in our community!!  The Book Bin Program delivers a wide variety of books for all ages directly to you from various locations in Sooke.

 In December 2009, Sooke Literacy Project hosted a Book Drive and theresponse was overwhelming! Over 4000 books were collected! While out and about, keep your eyes pealed for the Book Bins.  They're filled with books for you to take home and enjoy with your family. Any book you choose is yours until you no longer want it. You can return it to any of the Book Bin locations, or pass it on to someone else to enjoy! Bins are replenished every month, so you have new books to choose from.

Book Bins are found at the following locations:

• CASA building
• SEAPARC
• The Stick in the Mud Coffee House
• Strong Start Program: John Muir Elementary - A Place to Play (Beecher Bay)
• Port Renfrew Community Center

If you wish to donate new and/or gently used books for the Book Bin Program, please contact us.

Sooke Stories Across the Ages

This is a new initiative that arose out of some ‘bright ideas’ of a range of local people. Across youth leadership, literacy, community services and seniors’ residential care, we have come together to work on a project for the benefit of youth, seniors and the whole community.

The project is basically designed around youth engaging with seniors at Ayre Manor. In the initial stages we hope that their relationships will develop around reading to the residents, and in time this will become more of a sharing of stories.….across the ages!

The outcomes we expect to see include: the development of positive relationships for and between the youth and seniors, increased literacy, capturing stories from the intergenerational residents of Sooke and any other positive social skills developments. In the long term we are hoping that we may be able to bring in some more creative or artistic support, such as that used in the RedLining project. This will depend on the outcome of the current pilot stage, next steps and the direction agreed in the steering group.

The project has been designed and led by a small team from PCFSA, the community, Sooke Literacy Project, Ayre Manor Lodge and EMCS student leadership group. We have been joined by some wonderful volunteers who will help us with technological support. We would welcome any participants joining the steering committee.

We already have established selection criteria for the youth and seniors and have designed an orientation process and some expectations for involvement in the project. Youth are able to have their hours of time with seniors in this project recorded as volunteer hours. The pilot has been completed and we are accepting applications for those interested to start in 2010.

For more information contact us.

Port Renfrew Reading Club

The Port Renfrew Reading Club is a way to celebrate and reward the reading kids and parents are doing and encourage them to keep going! The Reading Club rewards every reading session for every child! For children under the age of 6, the Club rewards the reading that is being done with a parent/guardian/babysitter/older brother and sister!

Children collected stickers at home, at school, at both Strong Start and Stay Around Play Around programs or at the Pacheedaht Youth Program. For children reading at home, parents sent notes to let the teacher know how much reading was done. Stickers were placed on the classroom “Reading Club Chart”.

In this Club, everybody is a winner! Every child received a book of his or her own to take home for his participation in the Reading Club! In addition, several great prizes were awarded for the kids who read the most in each age group.