A Virtual Gratitude Reception: CGLR Applauds Civic Leadership and Engagement

A Virtual Gratitude Reception: CGLR Applauds Civic Leadership and Engagement

“The question is not whether one book can change a life. It’s what happens to that child if no one is there to provide one. ”  
– Douglas Chadwick, Founder of the Kiwanis Literacy Club Foundation 

The 2026 Gratitude Reception brought together leaders from service clubs, fraternal orders, fraternities, and sororities to highlight their sustained role in advancing early learning and early literacy in communities across the country. The session also offered an opportunity to recognize an essential but often overlooked strength of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading: the deep, frequently invisible partnerships between CGLR’s network of more than 300 stakeholder communities and the civic organizations that help move this work forward. 

Moderator Jenny Bogoni of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation opened by asking each panelist a simple question: “Why do you do this work?” She framed the conversation around Philadelphia’s own Read by 4th campaign — a coalition of more than 130 partners and 1,000 volunteer “reading captains” — as a case study in what civic leadership can accomplish when it shows up for grade-level reading. 

“…from my experience leading Read by 4th for 10 years, working with civic leadership, like the work that these people represent, was key to our success.”  
-Jenny Bogoni, Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation 

Here are a few other themes that the 2026 Gratitude Reception touched on.  

• Books in hands. Douglas Chadwick picked up the thread from there. Founder of the Kiwanis Literacy Club Foundation, he described a decade-long journey from community volunteer to founder — a journey that has put more than 500,000 new books into the hands of children in underserved Southern California communities, through free book distributions and a growing network of Little Free Libraries.  

“When you give a child a book, you’re giving them a story, a spark, and a future.”  
-Douglas Chadwick 

• Seeing clearly. Talitha Dale brought a different lens — literally. As Program Director of the Elks Preschool Vision Screening Program at Oregon’s Casey Eye Institute, she traced the initiative back to 2003, when a rural nursing assistant called the clinic after discovering a missed case of amblyopia — a wake-up call about how many vision problems in young children go undetected. Today, the program screens children ages 3–7 and, just as importantly, follows up to make sure families actually get to an eye doctor. It’s that follow-through, built through school partnerships, that Dale credited for the program’s high compliance rates.

“…80% of children’s learning is within the first 12 years, and comes through their vision. So it’s really important for children to be able to see in order to learn.”  
-Talitha Dale

• Investing early. Doug Ismail, President of the California Masonic Foundation, walked through his organization’s long partnership with Raising a Reader — investing nearly $5 million over 14 years and reaching more than 200,000 children in the state’s lowest-performing classrooms, with public dollars matching the investment almost two-to-one. He offered a candid observation: Social capital has been declining since the 1960s, making it harder than ever to connect resources to the communities that need them. But he’s found that service organizations like his are discovering renewed purpose in early literacy work, as members look for meaningful ways to engage. His advice to nonprofits seeking partners: bring a specific, meaningful opportunity that aligns with the partner’s core mission, not a general ask for support.  

“The partnerships are valuable, but when you can bring something special, when you can bring something that allows folks to have a source of pride and excitement and passion for the work, it made a huge difference for us.”  
-Doug Ismail 

• Representation on the shelf. Evan Jackson, National Literacy Chairman for Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, shared how he built a partnership with Room to Read while still a student at Brown University — motivated by seeing how underrepresented students of color were in higher education and determined to do something about it earlier in the pipeline. Today, fraternity members from chapters across the country visit elementary schools to read aloud and donate books featuring diverse characters and stories. Jackson echoed Ismail’s advice, adding that the more homework a nonprofit does on a potential partner’s mission upfront, the more genuine the collaboration that follows.  

“We specifically believe that representation in reading and literacy is very important. The purpose of our mission is to showcase that reading can be fun and that you can see yourself in these books, especially as a person of color. And they’ll also see older people of color who are invested in reading and find it fun.”  
-Evan Jackson 

• The 30%. Munro Richardson, Ph.D., Executive Director of Read Charlotte, closed out the panelists’ initial comments by describing his organization’s role as a capacity-building intermediary — coordinating community partners such as Promising Pages, Raising a Reader, and Vision To Learn, as well as running direct-to-family marketing campaigns. He pointed to research suggesting that motivation and executive function skills account for roughly 30% of learning success, and as much as half of the variation in children’s reading ability. This is a reminder that literacy work isn’t only about access to books, but about the conditions kids need to actually read and learn from them. 

“We can’t do anything if we’re not motivated to do it. And so that makes you appreciate groups and efforts that are helping to build kids’ motivation, that are building self-efficacy, that are building their self-belief, that are helping them see the value of what they’re doing, because it doesn’t matter how many degrees you have, if you’re not motivated and you don’t care, you are not going to learn.”  
-Munro Richardson, Ph.D. 

From there, the conversation widened. Panelists compared notes on what keeps volunteers engaged — well-structured opportunities, creative scheduling like hosting weekend events, and meeting people where they are — and consistently returned to a common thread: Sustainable partnerships are built on specificity. Know the organization you’re approaching. Bring them something that speaks to their mission. Do your research first. 

Key takeaways from the panel: 

• A bias toward action — taking that first step — is what separates good intentions from real impact.  
• Barriers and opportunities look different across communities. Literacy coalitions, such as Read Charlotte and others in CGLR’s network, can be the on-ramp for anyone looking to understand their local context and find ways to help. 
• People who want to help their communities frequently don’t know where to start. Seek them out, ask them to do something specific, and you’ll find more willing hands than you expect. 
• To scale impact, invest in civic leadership nationally and help local campaigns connect with organizations like the ones on this panel.