Children’s Reading Connection launches new initiative

The weather may have been cold and windy in Ithaca on Dec. 2, but that didn’t discourage Brigid Hubberman, founder and CEO of Children’s Reading Connection (CRC), from launching the nonprofit’s new initiative toward improving county literacy — Read. Sing. Love. Books! — at the site of the incoming Visions Federal Credit Union.

Held at 410 Elmira Rd. and streamed over Facebook, Hubberman’s press conference featured several guests, who all spoke to the importance of reading and the new initiative in their lives and the lives of those they serve.

The initiative’s first act was providing a set of six picture books from CRC’s Sing Me a Story! Read Me a Song! to 200 children, which included every pre-K child in the Ithaca City School District and the Downtown Ithaca Children’s Center, and to all of the public libraries in Tompkins County.

CRC also launched a fundraising campaign to provide all pre-K and Head Start children in the county with the same set of books, for which Visions announced a $10,000 match challenge in addition to funds it already donated to the new initiative.

“Children’s Reading Connection, we’re actually a national literacy organization, but we love to be involved in this community to start pilots here,” Hubberman said at the conference. “When those books went home for children, teachers and families said it was just a lifesaver. And so today, we want to make that happen again. And it’s quite amazing that Visions is right there to help us do that.”

Hubberman has long been an advocate for promoting community literacy, leading her to found the Family Reading Partnership over two decades ago and CRC just four years ago. As she explained, Read. Sing. Love. Books!, while influenced by these and other older programs and projects, was crafted during and because of the pandemic.

“With the pandemic happening in the spring, … I just was determined,” she said. “I thought, ‘Families are at home. They didn’t expect to be home. We’ve got this issue of equity and access, where many families don’t have a lot of resources. We have to do something.’ And so, I was able to scramble together and get enough sets, enough funds for the ICSD pre-K.”

Hubberman said providing so many children with the same set of books furthers equity and creates “cultural capital” in the process. Visions Federal Credit Union shared that viewpoint, said Chief Governance and Strategy Officer Jenna Rosenberg, which is why she and her team pledged their support for the initiative even while their new building is still under construction.

“When we had the opportunity to partner with Brigid and the Connection, we saw the power of what we could do and how much good we could do for the community and all of the recipients of these books,” she said at the conference. “These books will truly be a light spot in a dark time for all of us. This is the start of something awesome.”

Visions CEO Ty Muse added that the initiative has many of the same goals Visions has of promoting community involvement and equity for residents, something he and his team plan to continue in their expansion into the county.

“I’ve always said education is the great equalizer. No matter how poor you are, if you can get enough education, you have power,” he said. “So to me, this is a perfect connection to what we believe in. We believe in giving financial power. We believe in giving financial power through financial literacy, and literacy starts with you being able to read. So, for me, this is a no-brainer.”

Part of Visions’ show of support was agreeing to host the first of several planned banners promoting the new initiative, featuring performing partners Cal Walker and John Simon from Sing me a Story! Read me a Song! More banners are planned at libraries and other buildings and TCAT buses in the coming weeks and months. The second banner will appear on Ithaca High School’s tennis court fence, followed by Lambrou Real Estate.

At the press conference, several community leaders voiced their support for Hubberman’s efforts. Two people who spoke about the impact of the book sets on their lives were ICSD parent Kadhim Owayez and ICSD pre-K teacher Sarah Smith.

“I will never forget that day when I got the books,” Owayez said. “We found it under our doormat — beautiful, colorful books in very difficult, dark times. That meant a lot to us. As a son of two illiterate parents who lived and died and could not write a letter or read a word, I would like to thank Brigid and her team and the mayor and his team and Dr. Brown and his team for the valuable efforts to save the community.”

Smith said knowing that all of her students had the same six books at home provided important learning opportunities.

“Receiving a set of Sing Me a Story! Read Me a Song! turned out to be a lifesaver for Ithaca City School District pre-K,” she said. “With the books to hold, touch, look at and listen to, children could engage with their hands-on experiences that took the learning beyond the stories, making it more enriching and developmentally appropriate.”

Walker, an active participant in the initiative, told attendees why the program meant so much to him and fellow performer Simon.

“John and I have partnered with Brigid and organizations led by Brigid for a number of years,” he said at the conference. “Frederick Douglass, I think, said it most succinctly. He said, ‘Education is liberation.’ And that is exactly why we are so excited, John and I, about being involved in this particular project.”

Ithaca 2nd Ward Alderperson Seph Murtagh, who attended on behalf of Mayor Svante Myrick, added that Read. Sing. Love. Books! is a much-needed motivator during the challenging times created by COVID-19.

“When so many people have been struggling with the pandemic, … to promote reading and literacy especially at this time is to send the message that we truly are all in this together as a community,” he said. “And we’re going to get through this pandemic.”

Jennifer Tavares, president of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, spoke to the importance of the initiative long after the pandemic as well.

“We know that early childhood education and childhood literacy are truly important, key building blocks for lifelong learning, for being inquisitive, for everything that we all want to do and the goals that we set for later in life,” she said. “And so, this investment for our community is truly meaningful, and what you’re all doing for children today will absolutely pay dividends to our community tomorrow.”

Hubberman said she sees Read. Sing. Love. Books! continuing well into the future, and she hopes to use the initiative to inspire other communities to follow suit.

“We imagine that this Read. Sing. Love. Books! will then be adopted by other communities and that they’ll do the same thing,” she said. “What will be beautiful is they’ll do it in their own way. And when you share something, it always comes back stronger. And so, we’ll learn something from them, and then we’ll share that back out again.”

CRC’s Sing Me a Story! Read Me a Song! continues Dec. 12 at 11 a.m., when Simon and Walker perform a virtual concert from the State Theatre of Ithaca. Among the stories scheduled to be performed is “All Are Welcome,” which Simon read aloud at the Dec. 2 press conference.

Visions’ $10,000 match challenge for CRC continues until Dec. 31, though Hubberman is hoping to meet her fundraising goal before then to provide the book sets as holiday presents for kids. Visit childrensreadingconnection.org/read-sing-love-books to learn more about Read. Sing. Love. Books! and more about CRC.