Providing educational support for our children

Your donations are ensuring that there are 100 books for families to access as part of The Smith Family‘s Let’s Read Program.

The Smith Family received a $30,000 grant from the Give Where You Live Foundation in 2017 to strengthen reading and literacy skills of preschool children living in disadvantage families within the communities of Corio, Norlane, North Shore and Whittington through the Smith Family Let’s Read Program.

Through the support of the Foundation, the Let’s Read program has been able to support the Northern Bay Family Centre and Early Learning Centre & Kinder to purchase special dual language books because of the growing number of non-English speaking families in the 3214 community. These wonderful stories are in English and also in another native language so that parent and child can read together.

This helps to ensure there will be up to 100 books for families to access. The Smith Family Program Coordinator in Geelong has been working with the two Centres. “A fantastic shared dual language book library has been created where kinder groups can come and participate in reading, and where families can borrow the books and enjoy reading them together at home”.

The Let’s Read program in Corio/Norlane has been support through the Corio/Norlane ‘Best Start’ committee, engaging services through the City of Greater Geelong and through other local community organisations. These include the Local Corio Library, Maternal and Child Health Services, Kindergartens, Child Care Centres, a Family Centre and a number of local Playgroups.