The inaugural El Rincon Festival of Books was a success. Over a hundred students attended the event and were treated to a variety of literacy activities. The event featured local authors S. Michele Chen, Latrice McGlothin, Teresa Verduzco, Linda Hargrove, Jim Warner, Kia Lazarre, and Cesili Wiliams. Additional areas to celebrate books included reading with stuffies in the library, outdoor read along video screening, bookmark making with Ms Ashley Wheeler, poetry with Daniela Ciubotariu, comic strips design, a giant word search, literacy games, mad libs, and a story walk. We also had a book exchange and continued our food drive for the Backpack for Kids program.
The El Rincon campus was turned into a book lover’s dream – students roamed around in an environment that celebrated literacy, books, and education. From beginning readers in TK to readers in grades, there was something for everyone. Whether it was signing up for a library card, learning about braille letters, exchanging books, taking a walk to read poster printouts of Snow in the Jungle / Nieve in la Jungla, meeting authors for the first time, the El Rincon PTA was excited to create this unique event to celebrate literacy.
The El Rincon PTA offered their thanks to the organizing committee who spent over two months planning this wonderful event – VK Shah, Teresa Wong, Billie Shipley, Caitlin Swartz, Lisa Evans, Anasia Obioha, and volunteers Jen Fondo, Daniela Ciubotariu, De’Jah Carver, Jory Carver, and Rhoda Santos. And a thank you to our youngest committee member, second grader – Emma Evans, and student helpers- Lucas Swartz, Pauline Richardson, Ryan Shipley, Prem Shah, and Preet Shah.
Thank you to the Culver City Rotary Community Foundation for their generous donation to the El Rincon PTA to support literacy and reading for our Rocket Scholars.
VK Shah
