Between The Lines

To our donors: your generosity and support have been greatly appreciated.

The Between the Lines project has completed its first reading with Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.  Thirty-three mothers read to 48 children.  Another reading was held at Santiam Correctional Facility where 11 fathers read to 23 children.  Following both of the readings, Between the Lines volunteers took an educational tour of the correctional facilities and gained a better understanding of life in prison.

Some of the responses we received after the readings were

"This experience was great. I cried and felt close to my children."
"The volunteers were absolutely wonderful. The sincerity and kindness were so helpful during this emotional time. Thank you so much for this experience."
"This is a great program. I didn't think I would be comfortable doing this but the volunteers and staff were so helpful. I loved this and know my child will too."

We will be busy during December wrapping up the new books to send to all of the children whose parents read to them and then mailing the books, along with the CD of the parents reading the books, to all of the children.

Links:

• Watch for Between The Lines updates here too

This fall Between the Lines will expand the project by offering Digital video recordings of readings.  We have the goals to increase the numbers served by increasing the number of reading.  The program partners with the Army National Guard and is working to expand to other divisions like the Air National Guard. 

The project was had video equipment but will still need supplies like DVDs and children's books to make it a success!

Links:

• Between The Lines Page

It has been a great year for Between the Lines for many, many reasons.

The partnership between Bring Me a Book and BTL has been very successful.  The Bring Me A Book workshops held for inmates one week prior to their BTL readings have been instrumental in teaching the inmates to read with expression and character voices.  As BTL volunteers, we have seen a great improvement in how inmates are reading.  The feedback has been very positive from the inmates and their enthusiasm is evident when they are reading.

We have hosted 4 readings this year at Coffee Creek and Santiam facilities with 105 parents reading to 159 children!!  In addition, we had a reading with the National Guard in November for deploying soldiers and their families.  At the event, 44 soldiers read to 85 children.  Colonel Dial was so impressed with all the volunteers that each one of us was personally thanked by him and given a coin of honor!

In March we held our first Book Drive at Barnes and Noble Tanasbourne.  The bookstore was hopping, filled with laughter and chatter of many actives, sustainers, and old friends catching up!  With 2 story times led by the wonderful Lindsey Lyons, there were over 30 children at the reading of one of our most popular books, Pinkalicious! In addition to the readings, the heroes of the Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue crew were on hand to show children their fire truck and teach them about fire safety.  We had a tremendous turnout and a large amount of books donated to Between the Lines. Great fun was had by all and THANK YOU so much to everyone who came out to support us……your generosity is sincerely appreciated!!

With our year quickly coming to a close, we have one more wrapping party to wrap and package the books and CDs from our last reading event in April.  At this final reading event we had 33 inmates read to 54 children.  As always, our experiences with the Junior League have been very rewarding and remind us how truly fortunate we are to be able to help others.

Links:

• Visit our Facebook page for more photos and info on our work.