Your donation dollars are at work, directly benefitting Skokie residents!

One of this year’s grants is well underway – a project that provides core sets of multilingual reading materials in diverse languages. Texts in these languages are difficult to source and often cost more than those in more commonly spoken languages. This grant brings together Oliver McCracken Middle School , East Prairie School District 73 Official Page , Old Orchard Middle School (Dist. 68), Niles Township Schools’ ELL Parent Center , and @skokielibrary.

Check out this grant impact statement from Mrs. Tori Gammeri, Librarian & Social Justice Club Advisor at Oliver McCracken Middle School:

“In February, Oliver McCracken Middle School hosted a community open house at Skokie Public Library and had the joy of reconnecting with former students and families that were instrumental in the birth of this project. We also used grant money to purchase a collection of multilingual picture books that we used at our district’s Taste of 73.5 event last month. Thanks to these books, students and staff were able to offer read-aloud stories in Assyrian, French, Spanish, Yoruba, and Tagalog which was a perfect way to celebrate the beautiful diversity of Skokie.”

The students, who are 6th and 7th grade volunteers with the school’s Social Justice Club, were all excited to share their languages with the district community through picture books.

Gammeri shared a story about student Isabelle (first photo), “Our reader who shared the French story has only been in the US for a couple months. Being able to engage her in literacy activities has been so much easier thanks to the grant money! And we could tell it was really meaningful for her family to watch her do the reading surrounded by friends in her new school. It was a moment I’ll always remember.”

The multilingual story time also included students Alexa (second photo) who read a book in Tagalong, Angelina (third photo) who read a book in Spanish, and Oluwadarasimi (fourth photo) who read a book in Yoruba. Mrs. Najiba Samuel, a staff member at McCracken (last photo) read in Assyrian.

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