Reading Program to Kids in Nassau County

The end of the school year is always an exciting time for kids. The thought of playing outside and family vacation are the things kids think of the most. This year the Yva Jourdan Foundation wanted to give some kids something else to have while having fun on vacation, our selected storybook What It Means to be Kind by Rana DiOrio.

At the end of the school year in mid June we went into two learning facilities, Northern Parkway Elementary School and The Learning Way Child Care Center, to have an open discussion on the meaning of kindness with kids from age 3 to 7. Pictured below our founder Marsha Guerrier read the book with the students who shared their experiences with treating people with kindness and how they felt when they were treated with kindness or faced with being bullied.

At the Northern Parkway Elementary school in Uniondale, NY we talked with a classroom of kids that were not afraid to talk about their personal experience with being bullied. One kid shared an experienced he had with an older student in the play yard. He recounted that they kid would tease him because he was playing alone. When other kids started to notice him being teased they came to his defense and offered him to play with them. He said that when the bully saw that everyone else was being kind, he too began to play with him and now they are all friends. The young boy told the class that had it not been for someone else sticking up for him, maybe the bully would have never stopped. The best part was that he was speaking to him classmates about the importance of them sticking up for each other and the classmates were all in agreement.

At the Learning Way Child Care Center we had a child there that actually admitted to being a bully to others. As we read the book the other kids shared with him how other bullies made them feel and explained to him how his actions were hurting others. During the conversation another kid turned to him and said if you want to be friends I will be your friend and told him that he believes he is a bully because he needs more friends. The young boy told us that he does feel isolated and that is why he choses to be a bully. He said he will think more about how his behavior is affecting others and will be kinder and make more of an effort to make friends this coming school year.

These are the dialogues that we are excited to have with our children in hope of helping them fight bullying amongst themselves. We are scheduled to return to 2 more school this fall to have these discussions with the next wave of rising stars.

In addition to the reading program your help has enabled us to provide 100 backpacks to children in our community whose family may have financial difficulties. We have partnered with other local organizations to donate backpacks and school supplies. Having the necessary supplies for school is essential to children learning and we believe that our backpack drive goes hand in hand with our Just As I Am Reading Program.

Thank you for supporting our project, it is because of donors like you we are able to have such impactful projects in our community. We ask that you continue your support by sharing our project with your network and to continue funding our project.

Again, thank you and I look forward to sharing more stories from our project team in the future.

Warm Regards,

Marsha Guerrier