May 2009

Jazz Fest, GED Graduation, PNOLA Kids Fair, Bayou Boogaloo, NOPL - Summer Reading Kickoff

Festivals Galore: Members started off the month volunteering at the Jazz and Heritage Festival and after working for a few hours they were able to enjoy the music festival as a bonus -a pretty nice bonus considering the small AmeriCorps living allowance and the pirce of Jazz Fest Tickets! (Read more about this service project and others in the May-June edition of AmeriWord.) Why work one festival when you can volunteer at two or three? After getting a taste of the music and food of New Orleans at Jazz Fest, members completed two days of outreach with the Literacy Alliance at the Bayou Boogaloo festival. Despite the threat of rain members enjoyed to beautiful and sunny days telling the public about our programs and issues of low literacy in the Greater New Orleans area, and even doing some recruiting for AmeriCorps. Members also helped out at the Phoenix of New Orleans Kids Fairs were they read to kids, inform the public about Family literacy and gave away free books. It was a great month for New Orleans festivals!

GED Graduation: For the second year in a row, the Literacy AmeriCorps members helped behind the scenes with the Greater New Orleans Regional GED Graduation. This year was a huge success as more than 100 GED graduates took the stage including Literacy AmeriCorps Member Courtney Bartet! A variety of dignitaries including Congressmen Cao and others spoke to the graduates on their big day and R&B Speaker and Vocalist Philip Manuel gave the keynote address, which included some beautiful singing. However, the highlight of the day came from the graduates themselves. Two speakers one from Delgado and one from NOPLAY told their personal stories and actually brought many of the audience and the speakers to tears. Check out a reprinting of one student testimonial as well as many pictures and student reflections in the May-June edition of AmeriWord.

Summer Reading Kickoff: This year, the teen reading program of the New Orleans Public Library is breaking out of the box. Teens have their own programs, their own reading logs and their own prize drawings, and teens who read six books will be entered into a drawing for electronic goodies, including an MP3 player and a mini camcorder. There will be game days and nights and several performances for teens this summer. There is an online reading program, so teens, who are busy with summer jobs and activities can participate 24/7. Literacy AmeriCorps members Judith Patrick and Kenneth Bryan were out and about for the Game Day Kick Off at NOPL's Children's Resource Center. Kids from the metro area enjoyed, reading, computer games, snacks and a mega dosage of the popular video game Guitar Hero.

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