IT ALL BEGINS WITH AN IDEA 

As the first Head Start teacher in Detroit, Joan Weisman encountered four-year-olds who had never seen a book. She vowed to change this, and in 1991, enlisted the help of her friend, Jenni Zimmer, a school psychologist and fellow community organizer, to bring more books to the families in under-resourced communities. The women started with a garage full of books and the goal of encouraging young parents with few resources to read to their babies as a way to lay a solid foundation for language and literacy.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

Operating until 2016 as a primarily book-giving organization, CLN’s current growth in scope and programming could not have been foreseen by CLN’s founders. Nevertheless, the original goals of the organization remain the same. When Betsy Durant became Executive Director in 2017, CLN began working strategically to provide a continuum of services through interconnected programming, delivering evidence-based literacy interventions to the same communities of parents, schools, and children beginning from the time children are in preschool and continuing throughout their elementary school careers.

In all 4 of CLN’s core programs, we implement robust curricula (based in the Science of Reading and aligned to Michigan State Core Standards) through engaging methods to develop children’s literacy skills and ignite an intrinsic motivation to read. Book-giving is still embedded in all programs to ensure every child has the opportunity to build their very own home libraries with appropriately leveled, brand-new titles.

Throughout her 8-year tenure, Betsy drove the growth of CLN by focusing on delivering these interventions more widely and with greater efficiency—from visioning, creating, launching, and sustaining CLN’s programs, to leading improvements in programs and business operations (including developing the organization’s brand & digital presence and spearheading capacity-building work with community partners & other area nonprofits), to expanding services across Washtenaw County and into Wayne County. Each change CLN has made in terms of program content and delivery has strengthened this continuum and has increased the trust that parents, schools, and children have in CLN.

CLN continues to scale our programs to respond to our community’s specific literacy needs. By increasing our impactful programming— including engaging and collaborative literacy lessons, positive reading mentors in the schools during the day, and fostering school-parent-community connections—we are holistically supporting children and their families to be successful in school and in life.

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