Igniting a Love of Reading in Oakland Kids
Oakland Literacy Coalition
Eat. Learn. Play.’s partnership with Oakland Literacy Coalition (OLC) started as a budding conversation before the COVID-19 pandemic and has grown into a multifaceted effort to impact literacy rates for Oakland students.
OLC is a leader in Oakland’s literacy efforts, supporting schools, removing barriers to learning, and convening a diverse coalition of service providers. By working with OLC, these providers can be more effective, access opportunities to learn, and amplify issues impacting literacy rates.
“Our mission is working together to ensure that every Oakland student learns and loves to read, and we really look at the love piece,” recounts OLC’s Co-Executive Director, Cassie Perham, “It's more than academics; it's about students being able to build their sense of identity and become agents of change in their communities.” Joy becomes the intersection between Oakland Literacy Coalition and Eat. Learn. Play., as both organizations aim to spark joy and appreciation for learning and reading in OUSD students.
OLC has been supporting the Oakland community, especially OUSD students, for more than a decade, building relationships and trust with the community. Perham shares, "The Oakland Literacy Coalition has long worked to connect students and families with high interest, culturally affirming books and create joyful, community-based literacy environments and experiences. Our partnership with the Eat. Learn. Play. Bus has brought new scale, visibility, and energy to these efforts, reaching more students while reinforcing the importance, fun, and power of reading."
“Our partnership with the Eat. Learn. Play. Bus has brought new scale, visibility, and energy to these efforts, reaching more students while reinforcing the importance, fun, and power of reading.”
-Cassie Perham, Co-Executive Director, Oakland Literacy Coalition
The Eat. Learn. Play. Bus—launched in September 2021—is the perfect representation of the partnership between the Oakland Literacy Coalition and Eat. Learn. Play. The Bus includes a mobile library distributing diverse, culturally-appropriate books to OUSD students. It meets students where they are, reducing the gap of inaccessibility. OLC assists with book selection and book distribution and there is a designated staff member to ensure that the Bus is a seamless addition to the literacy strategy. The partnership has helped scale book distributions without losing quality.
Beyond the Bus, Little Town Libraries is another project in partnership with Oakland Literacy Coalition, started in 2022 to ensure that Oakland kids can read anywhere and everywhere. Currently, Eat. Learn. Play. is in the process of funding and constructing 79 Little Town Libraries: small libraries containing free books for youth placed across Oakland. The Libraries encourage school and neighborhood book sharing. OLC again leads the book selection process.
Perham applauds the various aspects of our partnership, “In addition to the funding that's helped us expand our work directly, there's also a bigger piece that ELP is doing around calling attention to the literacy crisis in Oakland, and raising the profile by bringing in other supporters and making sure people are paying attention. That lifts up not just the OLC’s work, but organizations across the ecosystem.”
Since our inception, Eat. Learn. Play. has invested over $6 million into literacy programs. Working with OLC and other valued literacy partners, we aim to ensure that all elementary school students in Oakland have access to school-based, high-impact tutoring, as well as over a million culturally affirming books, through programs like the Eat. Learn. Play. Bus and Little Town Libraries, book fairs, holiday giveaways, and school libraries replenishments.
The partnership between Eat. Learn. Play. and Oakland Literacy Coalition will continue to play a critical role in this work, not only through their book curation, but also their expert coalition building, advocacy work, and knowledge sharing. We are honored to join together with them to uplift the issue of literacy in Oakland.