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.

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. Importantly, we focus on providing a continuum of services – CLN programs are purposefully interconnected. We work with the same communities of parents, schools and children – beginning from the time the children are in preschool and continuing throughout their elementary school careers. 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.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

CLN continues to scale our programs to respond to the literacy needs in our community. By increasing our impactful programming, including positive reading mentors in the schools during the day, we are addressing reading proficiency in Southeast Michigan that continues to be hindered by inequities created by the book reading gap and the summer slide. We’re now focused on delivering these interventions more widely and with greater efficiency through improvements in our programs and business operations, and the expansion of our capacity-building work with community partners and other area nonprofits.

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