“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Well we have certainly had a busy summer! Our collaborative program with Harvey Najim, Boys & Girls Club and SA Youth is winding down and now it will be our charge to look at the data. We will be spending the next month or so gathering Fall test scores from our participants and our control group students to see what it tells us about “Summer Slide.” We want to once again extend a huge THANK YOU to Mr. Harvey Najim for his vision and generosity in making this program happen. We have learned so much about what it takes to offer a summer literacy program by working with established organizations to incorporatea reading curriculum into their offerings. It is our hope to build on this learning for next summer. Stay tuned! In addition to the Super Summer Readers, we have concluded another successful summer with our Camp Read-Aloud program at The Ella Austin Center and at Catholic Charities’ Guadalupe Center. We had great participation this year, reaching approximately 50 children daily between the two sites.

On a sad note for SAYL, we have said goodbye to Laura Nygaard our Volunteer/Data guru. She has left us for an adventure with Texas A&M San Antonio and we know that our loss is most definitely their gain. Good Luck, Laura! We are in the process of bringing on her replacement who will have big shoes to fill but whom we feel confident will.

If you are reading this newsletter, you are no doubt a follower of SAYL and more than likely a Reading Buddy. We look forward to the start of the new school year with great excitement and can’t wait to welcome you back. If you aren’t a Reading Buddy, please consider becoming one for 2018 -2019 and bring along a friend.

Deborah Valdez, Executive Director