Spring Break at Crisis Assistance Ministry

            Spring Break is a time for rest and relaxation for most people. CMS may have observed their break last week, but Promising Pages was hard at work. It turned out to be a very special week for us and our partner, Crisis Assistance Ministry.

            Promising Pages has been handing out books to children waiting at Crisis Assistance Ministry for a little over two years. They were our very first partner, and test marketed our first set of wrapped "presents." Our volunteers who pass out these book weekly at Crisis Assistance Ministry have had some incredible experiences seeing what our work can do in the community. Our volunteers tend to visit in the morning, about the time a lot of older children are in school. However, because of the school calendar, many of these kids find themselves waiting at Crisis Assistance with their parents over Spring Break.  

          Promising Pages stepped it up for Spring Break. Instead of going just one day for one hour, our volunteers went Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, for three hours a pop! Our volunteers arrived prepared to go above and beyond our normal visits to Crisis Assistance.  After receiving presents from Erma, kids in the waiting area enjoyed an exciting story time with Erma the Bookworma, a coloring contest for prizes, and even got to pick out a big stack of books to take home as their own! Wednesday afternoon, the extra books that were not used for the week were donated to Crisis Assistance’s Free Store, so that even kids who might not have been able to join us can still benefit from the life lesson that Erma teaches: You can do anything you want to do in this world, all it takes is 10 minutes of reading a day, and everyday you are one day closer to that dream life. 
           The program was such a success, we plan to implement the expanded concept to our summer Crisis visit. Join us!

 -#readysetread

Why Wrap?

            I’m a fan of gift bags. Especially when you live a frantic life, it’s so easy to just slip a gift for someone in a cheerful bag, stuff some tissue paper in the top (maybe even add a sprig of ribbon if you’re feeling saucy) and—voila!—instant present. Books are different, though. If you’ve ever wrapped a book before, I find the experience very satisfying.

            Here at Promising Pages, we do a lot of wrapping. In fact, wrapping the books we distribute to kids in our area is one of the things that makes our organization so unique. Imagine that rush of joy you feel when a friend hands you a present. Now imagine you’re seven, and that friend is wearing a bright yellow bookworm costume. Needless to say, wrapping books is very important to our organization. And as you may know, we largely rely on the helping hands of volunteers to do this very important job.

One of the things I dislike about wrapping (other than wrestling with the roll of paper) is how very time consuming it can become. It takes time to wrap well! Promising Pages has found an ingenious solution: the Wrapping Party. At every wrapping party I have ever attended, people are astounded by the number of books that can be wrapped by a group, instead of just one. In addition, wrapping books in a group creates a great place to catch up, or even get to know someone better. When the conversation is great, the fact that you’re doing a monotonous activity is trivial.

Speaking of which, is wrapping so trivial after all? Remember how you felt getting a wrapped gift as a child? Do you recall that buildup of suspense as you tried to guess the contents of the package? Opening that present was a gratifying experience, especially if it was something you wanted! Wrapping the books we distribute serves a purpose: we are creating positive thoughts and feelings associated with books. Surely that is worth an hour or two of wrapping with friends, and there is certainly no shortage of books that need attention! If you’re interested in hosting a wrapping party of your own (or just being a part of one), the volunteer page on our website is always open.  

#readysetread
-Carly Foster

Following up with Rama Road

As you may have noticed this week, people in education (or people who work with kids in general), have started getting excited about Dr. Seuss, whose birthday is on March 2^nd. On this day every year, you can find his works being read and activities done in his honor all over the country. What is Promising Pages doing for such an event?

Promising Pages’ claim-to-fame are the Magic Book Parties we host in the Charlotte area. The party excites students about reading and leaves them with a magic book of their very own. This year, Promising Pages is hosting its first Dr. Seuss Magic Book Party at Rama Road Elementary. We have a shipment of brand new books (“The Cat in the Hat” and “One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”) from First Book to distribute to the students at Rama Road. First Book is a national non-profit organization that works through smaller organizations (like us) to provide access to books to children who may have a hard time getting them.

We are very excited to be partnering with Rama Road for this event!  Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss, on what would have been your 109th birthday, so, so close to Earth Day!

#readysetread

Meet the Interns 2013!

Promising Pages is a volunteer-run non-profit organization.  Lots of people work hard to make Promising Pages a success and without them, there wouldn't be a Promising Pages. Our interns are part of this dynamic group.  Meet our 2013 spring interns:

Name: Carley Foster

Education: Senior at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, working on her  BA in Psychology with a double minor in Women's Studies and Child Development. This summer Carley will be studying Psychology abroad in London, and plans to graduate in spring 2014. She plans is to pursue a doctorate in Community Psychology and work in the non-profit sector, either working with one or beginning one of her own.

Hobbies: Carley loves to read Janet Fitch, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Roald Dahl, who are some of her favorite authors. Shealso loves to  hike, the outdoors, and nature photography. When there's time she also likes to do art projects and exercise.

What Carley had to say about Promising Pages:

"I have been working with Promising Pages since December 2012, and so far I have had some incredible experiences. The work I do requires me to be organized, flexible, and most of all an ambassador for the organization. I have learned how to network and have overcome my anxiety of driving to unfamiliar places. I get to witness firsthand how a non-profit organization functions from the inside out, and I am so grateful for all of these experiences."

"Out of all the things I do at Promising Pages, I think some of my favorites would have to be networking with others and handing out books at Crisis Assistance. See, I really love to talk, and networking allows me to promote our organization so people can get involved. At the end of the day it's great to be able to see all that hard work we do pay off when kids get so excited to receive our presents. It really is something you have to see for yourself to understand. When I first started working with PP, I understood kids were getting books as wrapped gifts, which is great, but to be able to watch their faces light up and see how happy they become when someone gives them something as simple as a book added a whole new dimension to my knowledge of why we do what we do."

Name: Brandon Harris

Education: Senior at Queens University of Charlotte, majoring in media communications and english literature and also a brother of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Brandon wants to get into marketing or human resources after graduation.

Hobbies: playing basketball and barbequing with friends.

What Brandon had to say about Promising Pages:
"Promising Pages is an incredible organization because it inspires children to read. Reading is the single most important skill to have in this world, so this organization is working to truly make the world a better place." So true, Brandon. So very true.

Name: Vanessa Agbozo

Education: Junior at UNC Charlotte, working on her BS in Business Administration, majoring in Finance and Marketing. Plans to pursue her MBA. Vanessa moved to the United States from Ghana, West Africa in March 2008 to further her Education.

Hobbies: Swimming, creating projects, reading-- especially science fiction, being around family and being involved at church

What Vanessa had to say about Promising Pages:
"I have been with Promising Pages since January 2013, and for this short period I have gained so much. As a person from a third world country, I understand what some of these children without advantages such as books available to them feel without them. To be able to see the joy on their faces as they receive their books and to know that, such a gift plays a role in the bright future that lies ahead of them is just enough satisfaction."

Name: Brennan Shearer

Education: Student at queens University o Charlotte with a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Italian.
Hobbies: Brennan loves to read, work with children, being a Young Life Leader at Myers Park High School, taking weekend trips to the beach or mountains with friends, watching movies, traveling, and simply being with friends and family.

what Brennan had to say about Promising Pages:

"I have definately gained a heart for empowering underprivileged children, not just providing for them. Through woking with Promising Pages, I have been able to realize the value of reading and of books. over the course of my time with Promising Pages I have been able to realize my strength and weaknesses more fully while improving upon them and receiving encourageent to provide creativity and new ideas to the organiation as continues to grow! What i love the most is being able to be a part of the joy that children have when they receive new books. It is worth all of the work to see kids in schools or at Crisis Assistance Ministry brighten up when they receive a vsit from Erma the Book Worma an have a new, wrapped book placed in their hands. I have also loved he opportunity to network and partner with so many other fantastic non-profits in Charlotte and I feel blessed to be a part of an organization that has witnesed so much growth over the year and continues to reach out ino Charlotte more everyday!"

Please give a shout out to our interns on our Facebook Page.



-Vanessa Agbozo
#welovebooks

Madeline Huff: Books are magical

(Republished with Permission from Society Magazine)

              The first time she heard Kristina Cruise speak at her Charlotte country day school campus, Madeline Huff (L) looked back to her own childhood experience. Huff, 17, sat in the audience during Cruise’s presentation on Promising Pages and thought of how many books she had when she was younger and how important that collection was to her.         

                She applied to the summer intern program and spent of June, July and August working with the organization. She and the other interns immersed themselves in a few of the five events that the nonprofit hosted on average each week. They attended wrapping parties and book drives, sorted and cleaned books at the warehouse before wrapping them and them branding them with the Promising Pages stamp, and transported the books to the elementary schools where the Magic Book Parties were taking place.
                “I really liked being able to go to the Magic Book Parties because I was putting in a lot of work behind the scenes,” Huff said.  “But being able to go to the Magic Book Parties and hand it to the kids in person – it was really rewarding because I got to see the direct impact.”
                She loved to see the children’s enthusiasm toward the magic. “Because they’re so young,” Huff said, “they’re trying to figure out how things work. They’re just so easily influenced.”
                She was influenced by her own work and by Cruise’s ambition as well. She said: “One of the biggest things I learned from this was, when you’re really passionate about something, you can make it happen, whatever it is. That’s what Kristina has taught me because she’s the best example of that.”

Allie Halter: A chance to make a difference

(Republished with Permission from Society Magazine)

                 When Allie Halter joined “The 200 Club,” a junior ambassador program established by Promising Pages, you could say that she found her calling. The club includes young people, even seven-year-olds, who have collected at least 200 books for redistribution, whether through a church, a neighborhood or an alternate creative method.

                Halter exceeded its expectations: She collected 4,100 books. Three SUVs were stuffed to the brim to transport them to their destinations.         

Madeline Huff, Kristina Cruise and Allie Halter

                “It sounds like so many books but I didn’t realize how many I had until I was going back and counting them because I was totally consumed by the entire experience.” Said Halter, 17. The Myers Park High School senior started her collection strategy through social media, sending a mass Facebook message to more than 100 acquaintances in Charlotte, who donated books.

                Then , she said, “ what ended up happening, thankfully, is that people who received my Facebook  message told other people so I received calls from friends of friends. “ they, as well as members of her church and youth group, added to the pile from the middle of June through the middle of August. “I was so excited,” she said. 

                More exciting was her shift in inspiration. During orientation for their internship with Promising Pages, Halter and the other students were told that, if they could total 300 points’ worth of activities from Facebook posts garnering community support to event attendance, Cruise would personally write them recommendation letters for college.

               “I thought I knew what I was getting myself into before I walked in that first day,” Halter said. She decided point accumulation through support was the route she would take and that was how she collected books during the first summer weeks.

                Then she started to attend Magic Book Parties at elementary schools and Crisis Assistance. “The second I started going to the events I automatically fell in love with it and every single aspect of the organization,” she said. She loved to watch the children gather their books, especially at follow-up parties carrying around stacks of their own choosing.

                “You have one chance to make a difference in these kids’ lives,” she said.  “To see them light up just makes all of it so worth it.”

Reading revolution inspires youth by

(Reprinted with permission from Society Magazine)

There are steps to finding magic in the pages of books. A volunteer hands a child a book and that child tears off the wrapping paper concealing it. The child touches the book and is told that, just by doing this, she will grow up to be smart, successful and capable of doing anything she wants to do in the world. And all she has to do to keep the book activated, to keep the magic swirling through her life is to read for 10 minutes each day.

It only takes 45 minutes to go through this process in local, elementary-school classrooms during Magic Book Parties hosted by the volunteers of Promising Pages. The nonprofit was founded by Kristina Cruise of Charlotte during the spring of 2011, and every party is infused with the encouragement of mascot Erma the Bookworma as the children learn to activate their books. A couple of weeks later, those students enjoy follow-up parties with Erma’s cousin, Erm the Bookworm, as they choose from a collection of additional donated books to build up their shelves at home.

“If they believe in the book then they believe in themselves,” Cruise said. “They can do anything. Kids go crazy over this concept.”

Focus on helping youth

          Just a few years earlier, Cruise started to believe she could do something, too. Her journalism career had taken her to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she worked as a reporter for an NBC affiliate. And her work had taken her to a sidewalk outside of a food bank, where a line of shivering people wrapped around several blocks of city streets. They were waiting for food that was in short supply, and Cruise’s job was to raise awareness through her writing about the condition of these people and their hours in the cold.

            Despite the swarm, Cruise said, “This girl caught my eye.” She looked to be about three years old, full of sweetness and full of sorrow as she stood next to her mother. Cruise thought, “What a terrible combination. Because I would wish someone who was that adorable would have joy and be smiling and have a light in her eyes. Instead it was this dark, dull desolation on her face. I just wanted to do something to cheer her up.”

            Cruise rummaged through the items she carried with her, hoping to find some sort of gift for the girl inside. But her face stayed in Cruise’s thoughts: “I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.”
            A couple of days later, Cruise listened to a radio program about the brain scans of a toddler of girls that age. The host spoke about a large-scale study that revealed a correlation between children’s brain function and access to books. Brain scans that lit up in all the appropriate areas were connected to toddlers who had access to books at home. But those that did not light up for certain spaces of the brain were connected to toddlers who did not have ample access to books at home.
            Cruise approached the issue of how to bring the necessary light to such children’s lives. She started to talk to teachers in local public schools, many of whom had students who never set hands on a book before arriving for their first day of school. She thought, “We can change this. Kids outgrow their books the way that they outgrow their shoes.”

Magic of youth helpers

          The idea that kids with books at home wear out only their favorites angled Cruise’s ambition. She wanted to revolutionize the concept of book drives and two years after moving to Charlotte she started to make it happen. May of 2011 brought about her book drive called Books and Basics with Classroom Central. She and other volunteers gathered about 5,000 books and school supplies.
            Then, in December, her nascent organization Promising Pages moved into its current warehouse, a surprise donation from David Longo of Carolina Business Interiors. “That’s the best thing that ever happened to Promising Pages,” Cruise said. “I would not be where I am today and the kids that we serve would not be where they are today if it weren’t for David Longo and his generosity.”
            Between January and October 2012, 40,000 books flooded into the warehouse to be distributed to area children. And between June and August, 22 young interns arrived to help Cruise and her two weekly volunteers, Linda Bonerba and Patricia Ozmeral, manage the workflow.
            Promising Pages unfolded a summer intern program after its coordinators called every possible high school in the area. They whittled down the applicant pool to select well-qualified high-schoolers to contribute to Magic Book Parties, wrapping parties and other events throughout the community, as well as warehouse maintenance and organization.
            Cruise said, “They dedicated over 1,777 man hours, they ran over 55 events in the community, they organized the warehouse, they distributed over 7,000 books and they collected over 6,000 books themselves.”

Same goals greater strides

          The piles of pages have yet to stop accumulating, as Promising Pages is launching its One Million Books Revolution. “Our goal is to collect and redistribute one million books because that’s how many books that we feel that we need to give all children in Charlotte a bookshelf full of books at home,” Cruise said.

            As one kickstarter for the revolution and as part of the one-year anniversary of the unveiling of the warehouse, Promising Pages will host a fundraiser in its warehouse at Carolina Business Interiors on December 1 and 2 that is open to the public. “One of the other things we’re doing at the book sale,” Cruise said, “which I’m so excited about, is that we had these bags printed, and they’re all Magic Reading Totes.”

            These signature items are designed to get children excited about reading by transforming ordinary books into Magic Books. The totes have the same effect as the wrapped books at the Magic Book Parties, only they can reach outside of the classroom of undeserved children.
            A parent can buy a tote - containing a special activation bookmark – for his or her child. The child will then learn to place the bookmark in the book, place both in the tote, and pull the book out three minutes later to read when the magic is at its best. If the child does this every day, he or she is said to be capable of anything.
            The magic reading Totes will make their way into the community and bring a greater immediacy to the reading endeavors of the children who hold them. Cruise said, “Then the magic in the book really shines through.”