Champions for Change
By Jean Rasmussen, Director of Community and Family Development

Across North America, public-private relationships are on the rise. More and more charitable organizations and corporations are forging partnerships to achieve their respective goals. These mutually beneficial liaisons come in many different forms. However, the majority of them involve more than money as their primary objective. Without losing sight of their basic economic role, or their need to make a profit, modern corporations have concerns, ideals and responsibilities which go far beyond the economic bottom-line. When nonprofits partner with corporations, government and private foundations, everyone benefits.

Literacy BC has developed many partnerships with socially minded corporations committed to literacy and life-long learning, and in particular, to family literacy.

For example, our National Family Literacy Day/Week Campaign committee includes the Starbucks Coffee Company, which initiated the ABC (All Books for Children) Book Drive and has continued its support through four annual campaigns, providing refreshments for the Breakfast of Champions, as well as the week’s workshops and events. Listel Vancouver hotel not only provides accommodation and other services for our Breakfast speakers and other special guests, but also contributes to our Family Literacy Fund. Last year, Panago Pizza came on board as an important sponsor of the Week, and has now made a major commitment to the new Panago Learn with Spinoza program in BC elementary schools. New this year is Read, Write and Roar!, the BC Lions summer literacy program, and Canadians Reading Together: The Family Stories project, an exciting venture we share with Word on the Street. Scholastic Book Fairs, Canada Post and the Vancouver Sun’s Raise-a- Reader campaign continue as major benefactors and partners.

Our focus, in this special edition, is to showcase and celebrate some of these partners who tell us, in their own words, why and how they have come to the table in support of children’s and family literacy.

Family literacy in BC owes much, not only to these outstanding corporations, but also to individuals and to government ministries with a vested interest in literacy and life-long learning. Without the ongoing and sustaining support of the National Literacy Secretariat, Human Resources Development Canada, (NLS), and B.C.’s Ministry of Advanced Education (AVED), family literacy as we know it in B.C. would not exist. In particular, Yvette Souque of the NLS, and Audrey Thomas, of AVED, deserve special appreciation and our deepest gratitude. These individuals are champions for family literacy, and — along with many other dedicated colleagues in programs throughout the province — have helped to cultivate and nurture the family literacy field.

This issue is a tribute to them all — individuals and community, corporate and government partners — for their commitment to children’s and family literacy.

We begin this special edition with a message from the Hon. Linda Reid, Minister of State for Early Childhood Development (ECD). In her address, Minister Reid explains how her Ministry is poised to sustain and build on the work that has been done in the area of early childhood development and gives more details on the Ministry of Child and Family Development’s investments and initiatives (please see insert enclosed).