In 2003, PHFE WIC was approached by Reading is FUNdamental of Southern
California (RIF) and asked to participate in a funded early literacy project in
the Beverly WIC Center in East Los Angeles as a supplement to a First 5 LA
literacy program that was already happening at the Center. Original partners
included BookEnds and EPIC (Educational Participation in Communities) from Cal
State Los Angeles. Funders over the past years have included the Los Angeles
Times Family Fund.
One day a week, WIC staff and volunteers from RIFSoCal spend a few hours
providing early learning activities for the children and families that come into
the Beverly WIC Center for WIC services. Parents are invited to help with the
activities and project staff model positive skills that work with young
children. WIC designed and provides a bi-lingual activity book to the children
that attend. This book was designed to help prepare young children for
Kindergarten.
In January of 2010, the Pico Rivera WIC Center became the second WIC site to
host RIF activities. RIF Family Literacy Night workshops take place once per
month at Pico Rivera.
In addition, BookEnds provides books to children at the Beverly and Pico Rivera
WIC Centers. Bookends is a small non-profit agency that supplies “gently-used”
books to community agencies, collected largely from book drives in local
communities.
This project serves as a model for other agencies looking for
partnerships that work in helping our children get a head start in
school.
For more information on the RIF project, please contact projects@phfewic.org.
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