Carrie Sak
Carrie is a mom who left a career in Human Resources to raise a daughter and volunteer with organizations that strengthen local communities. As a Neighborhood Reading Captain, Carrie brings people together around literacy-focused events in the Normandy community. Carrie and her husband RJ recently launched Culturally Fluent St. Louis (CF-STL), a local chapter of Culturally Fluent Families (CFF). This group helps white adoptive parents and caregivers of Black children connect with communities and help children build meaningful relationships that develop and affirm positive racial and cultural identities. Carrie believes that all kids and the young at heart thrive on community, culture, and literacy.
Presentations from Facing Race 2024
Book by Book, Block by Block: How Reading Captains are Building a Community of Readers
Equity in education requires stepping out of the box and into the community. Block by block, up, down, and all around their neighborhoods, Neighborhood Reading Captains are fostering a love of literacy in St. Louis.
Systemic racism has negatively impacted trust in institutions and has erected barriers in accessing accurate information for communities of color. In an effort to revise the narrative, Reader Readers is striving to shift power back to community members who were already actively hitting the pavement, books in tow, reading and handing out books in clinic waiting rooms, laundry mats, and barber shops through the Reading Captains program, modeled from Free Library of Philadelphia’s initiative as a part of their Read by 4th Campaign.
As trained and compensated members of the community, Ready Readers Reading Captains have engaged with over 500 children and families and distributed over 2,400 books throughout two targeted neighborhoods in just the first six months of pilot programming.
Ready for expansion into our next neighborhood, we encourage conference participants to join us as we reflect on the journey and elevate the voices of our Reading Captains and their experiences promoting literacy. Join us for a joy-filled panel conversation about how to leverage the collective power of those working to improve their own communities.
At the end, walk away with a community asset mapping tool, ready and confident to jumpstart your own community initiative—block by block!
Speakers: Lauren Campbell, Arthurine Harris, Zenique Gardner-Perry, Carrie Sak