Reading program celebrates 20 years

Two decades ago, four members of the James A. Dever Elementary School community came up with an idea to foster connections between their youngest and oldest members and strengthen reading skills. Last week, current and former participants in the school’s Intergenerational Reading Partners Program came together with some of its founders to celebrate its impact.

In 1994, Mimi Freidman, a member of the

National Council of Jewish Women’s Peninsula chapter, attended her grandchildren’s concert at Dever. As she watched, she came up with an idea about how local seniors could get more involved with the school, since many of them longed for some connection to the newest generation after their own families moved away.

Freidman came up with the James A. Dever Intergenerational Reading Partners Program, a volunteer reading program where local senior citizens would come every Monday to read with and talk to children at the school. Freidman presented the idea to Gaylen Guberman, the school’s principal, who loved the idea. Freidman, along with the school’s reading consultant, Claudia Santucci, and Emilie Feldman, a PTA parent volunteer, began the program later that year.

“I knew that as many people of my age grew older, they were missing interacting with their young kids or grandchildren who had since moved away or grown older,” Freidman said. “We told the principal and the others, that we would really like to see more of a relationship between juniors and seniors, and they thought the idea had a real chance at success, so we went through with it.”

The program, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on May 5 at Pompeii Restaurant in West Hempstead, has thrived ever since, with between 15 and 18 senior volunteers traveling to the school each week from Valley Stream, Malverne, Lynbrook and other surrounding communities.

Pauline Stanger, who now lives in Hewlett, first volunteered with the program 18 years ago, when she lived in Valley Stream. She’s participated nearly every year since, and said the program is the highlight of her week.

“I come every time they hold the program,” she said. “I always make sure to book whatever other events I have on other days. I absolutely love it. The kids are wonderful, and you really do form a relationship with them … one of my students from a couple years ago, her name is Samantha, we read together for three years, and I still speak with her and get a Christmas card from her each year.”

Such relationships are formed by design, according to Donna Araneo, the current head of the program. She said she prefers to pair the volunteers with as few different children as possible, allowing friendships to build and strengthen.

Sunya Kleiner, a longtime volunteer who, like Stanger, became involved with the program through the NCJW, said the effects of those pairings are evident.

“Both groups, us and the children, really love the camaraderie that comes from this program,” she said. “The reading volunteers, the students, they both stay with the program time and time again because of the relationships that can be built.”

While no student participants were present at the anniversary event, many submitted letters that were printed in the evening’s program.

“From the age of 5 to age 10, all of my friends ask why I would want to miss my recess to go sit in the library and read. I would always answer with ‘I don’t know.’ Thinking back, I wish I would have answered differently,” wrote Samantha Graham, the student who keeps in close touch with Stanger. “I wish I would have said, ‘Because it is fun and because I enjoy the one day a week I get to see my closest friends.’…Pauline taught me patience, confidence, forgiveness and so many other great things.”