REFORMA announces recipients of the 2010 NOCHE DE CUENTOS Family Literacy Focus Mini-Grants
Contact: Lucia Gonzalez
(786) 274-1575
Inotherwordsllc@gmail.com
NEWS
For Immediate Release,
March 9, 2010
North Miami Beach, FLA. - REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking (REFORMA), an affiliate of the American Library Association, proudly announces the winners of the 2010 NOCHE DE CUENTOS/ A NIGHT OF STORIES Family Literacy Focus Mini-Grants.;NOCHE DE CUENTOS is generously supported by the American Library Association as part of ALA 2009-2010 President Camila Alire’s Family Literacy Focus Initiative.
The winners are Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library in Charlotte, North Carolina; Half Moon Bay, a branch of the San Mateo County Public Library, San Mateo, California; Salinas Public Library, Salinas, California; the Mexican American Cultural Center, in conjunction with El Corazon de Tejas Chapter of REFORMA in Austin, Texas; and the National City Public Library, National City, California, in conjunction with the Libros Chapter of REFORMA in San Diego,
Each winning institution will receive a $500 mini-grant for the implementation of its program. “Noche is a wonderful way to return to the roots of literacy and use orality as a way to promote literacy in families” says Oralia Garza De Cortes, a founding member of Noche de Cuentos and a member of Noche de Cuentos Task Force.
At the Half Moon Bay Branch of the San Mateo County Public Library System, Outreach Librarian Armando Ramirez will help fifth grade students from area elementary schools collect, write, and create family storybook albums based on their family stories. The students will then share their work with the community at an evening Noche de Cuentos event at the public library.
In Austin, Texas, a community-wide event will feature local writers including Teresa Palomo-Acosta and Belinda Acosta, author of "Damas, Dramas and Ana Ruiz" (Hatchette Group, 2009) and the newly published Sisters, Strangers and Starting Over, her latest Quinceañera Club novel (Grand Central Publishing, 2010). Middle and high school students and their parents will visit Austin’s Mexican American Cultural Center and hear Maribel-Garza Castro, the first Mexican American President-Elect of the Texas Library Association tell her own story about growing up as the daughter of migrant farmworkers.
At the Salinas (Calif.) Public Library, the
abuelitas (grandmothers) from the community will share a place of honor as they tell their life stories at an evening gathering at the public library. The stories, told from the oral tradition, will also be gathered and bound. The published book, titled "Noche de Cuentos," will be available to the public and serve as a record of the event and of the grandmothers’ histories.
National City (Ca.) Public Library will host an evening storytelling program for families. Families will make personal history scrapbooks chronicling their journey, their hopes and their dreams. These hand-crafted books titled “Where I Come From / De donde vengo,” will help participants appreciate the importance of keeping family stories alive.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (CML) is partnering with the arts collaborative, Con A de Arte, and hosting a storytellers’ training session for over 100 Latino artists. In keeping with the Noche de Cuentos theme “ We all come from Somewhere/ Todos venimos de algún lugar,” each storyteller will bring a ‘tesoro personal’ or personal object that symbolizes their home origin. They will share their objects and stories at an evening celebration.
Noche de cuentos will be celebrated on the week of March 20-27, 2010 in conjunction with World Storytelling Day, observed during the spring equinox on March 20th. REFORMA invites;families from Latino communities across the United States to join the global community in the celebration of World Storytelling Day and gather at their libraries to share stories, songs and experiences from their families, their communities, or their countries.
For information, programming ideas or NOCHE promotional materials, please visit
www.REFORMA.org or
http://nochedecuentos.wordpress.com/ or contact Lucia Gonzalez at (786) 274-1575 or by email at
inotherwordsllc@gmail.com.
