Volunteer Center of Sonoma County Launches BookWorms, a New Bilingual Program to Improve Reading Readiness

Today, the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County launches BookWorms, a program providing pre-school age children bilingual books, activities and support with intergenerational volunteers to improve their reading readiness for kindergarten. Using evidence-based reading and bilingual books, volunteers provide weekly reading and activities. The end of the month is celebrated with a gift of books to take home, allowing these preschoolers to start their own family library. The featured book for this month is Harold and the Purple Crayon/Harold y el Lapiz Color Morado.

This Volunteer Center program is in partnership with 4C’s-Community Child Care Council. The mission of 4C’s includes “inspiring our community to support the well-being of every child” and we believe our expertise in volunteer programs is an ideal match for this organization. BookWorms will be delivered weekly at two 4C’s sites in Sonoma County as the pilot launches.

The Volunteer Center has been providing volunteer services in Sonoma County since 1972 and this expansion into preschools comes at a critical time. With many children in our falling behind as they enter kindergarten, our program aims to support pre-school age children by bringing high value volunteers into the preschools on a weekly basis. Volunteers must be bilingual, in both English and Spanish and recruitment is open for these volunteer roles. Those interested in volunteering should contact Buffy Welch at bwelch@volunteernow.org.

This pilot program is supported through an iREAD grant from the Community Foundation of Sonoma County.