It is a great honor and privilege to be the co-founder and Executive Director of Seeds of a Father, a 501C3 non-profit organization based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Our organization works to raise the significance of fatherhood and demonstrates how positive father engagement is associated with the overall well-being of children, families and communities. In addition, I am also a Springfield College School of Social Work MSW student that has been named a Massachusetts Literacy Champion for 2018. This award is presented annually to eight individuals who are active in the literacy education field and who are using innovative methods to help improve literacy in Massachusetts. Our recent work of bringing fathers into the schools is just one example of how our strength based service initiatives work to involve fathers/men in the lives and education of children and community. Our iREAD initiative which is purposed to increase literacy development among children, youth and adults will be our vehicle to drive literacy development to the next level. We have the desire to host book clubs throughout the city of Springfield with the goals and intentions to increase reading, creative arts/writing and language development among our residents.
We are thankful to the Springfield Renaissance School Principal Mrs. Coburn, as she has provided us the opportunity to start a book club at the Springfield Renaissance School starting this March 2018. We also are grateful to the organization Link to Libraries, for donating the book The Hate U Give by author Angie Thomas to the group.
The book club will be facilitated by myself and will involve 10-12 middle/high school students to participate once a week after school. The book club will run for three months and during each month a different book will be read and discussed. The day selected for the book club will be a day where a late bus will be offered at Renaissance and the students can take the late bus home. In addition to the reading and discussions the students will be required to write a short skit of their favorite portion of the book and creatively display it to the group. During the group sharing (week 4) there will be food and an invite extended to the families and the friends of the participating students. The students had the opportunity to select the books of their interest to read in which they have selected, The Hate U Give by author Angie Thomas, Life Unaware by author Cole Gibson and The Skin I'm In by author Sharon G. Flake. We thank the students of the Springfield Renaissance School for their interest to participate in our first iREAD initiative book club.
For more information regarding Seeds of a Father please visit us at www.springfieldfathersandfamiliesnetwork.com