“The delight on the children’s faces as they walked away with their books!”
“The parents’ happiness about the things we offered the children not costing them anything.”
“Seeing the families we want to serve.”
“Talking with families – especially immigrant families who are not otherwise connected with early learning programs.”
“Great community presence!”
“Energized adults working toward a common mission.”
All of these statements came from the partners and community members that volunteered in the Eastside Pathway’s Strawberry Festival booth last year. Hosted by the Eastside Heritage Center in Crossroads Park, the festival is an amazing opportunity to reach out to the diverse and unique Bellevue community.
My name is Emily Nassif and I am the Eastside Pathways summer intern for 2013. I am currently a student at Vanderbilt University and will be beginning my junior year of college in the fall. Growing up in Bellevue, I received amazing opportunities for success. Unfortunately, not every child is able to take advantage of the same resources that I was.
This summer at the Strawberry Festival we plan to continue the Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Eastside Pathway’s goal is for 100% of Bellevue third graders to be reading at grade level by 2016. The three pillars of this initiative are organized as collaboratives and include absenteeism, summer and extended learning, and school readiness. Eastside Pathways will host four tents at the festival: one for each collaborative, and one for general information about the work and for distributing prizes for completing the Eastside Pathways “passport” activity.
Each child will receive a “passport” with the four Eastside Pathways and partners’ tents mapped out. At each stop, the children will learn about the mission and message of the partner organization and receive a stamp on their passport. Upon completion of the journey, each child will receive a “Let’s Read” sticker and a free book from Eastside Pathways.
Our goal is to communicate and raise awareness for the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and to encourage children to read every day. Bellevue Schools will have recently ended for the summer and the festival represents an ideal time to remind children and their families of the importance of reading and continuous learning over the summer.
We would love for our partners to participate in the event. Last year Youth Eastside Services, the City of Bellevue, the Bellevue Schools Foundation, Chess 4 Life, and the Eastside Heritage Center all had stops on the scavenger hunt, and several partners were based in the Eastside Pathways tents.
The festival is on June 22nd from 10 am- 8 pm and June 23rd from 10 am- 5 pm in Crossroads Park (16000 NE 10th Street, Bellevue).
Here is a video of last year’s festivities.
Written by Emily Nassif, Eastside Pathways Intern.