May Membership Drive to Promote Children's Literacy

At VPR, we pride ourselves on connecting the community with our news, music, and conversation. But occasionally, we have the opportunity to connect our community in another way - through a membership drive!

In the past, our listeners have come together during membership drives to help the Vermont Foodbank as well as the CVPS Shareheat and Warmth programs. For our upcoming May membership drive, VPR has partnered with two other Vermont-based organizations to promote children's literacy.

Here's how it works: For every pledge that VPR receives during the drive, the Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF) will give a new book to a low-income or at-risk child in our region, thanks to Casella Waste.

CLiF is based in Waterbury and, since their founding in 1998, they have given away over 100,000 new books to children and libraries across Vermont and New Hampshire. After spending just an hour with CLiF Executive Director Duncan McDougall and his staff earlier this year, we had moved way beyond the exploratory stage and were discussing deadlines and trading email addresses.

We knew that we needed a third partner organization to agree to donate to CLiF based on the number of pledges we received during the drive. We typically receive between 5,000 and 6,000 pledges, so it would take a significant commitment. We turned to one of our underwriters, Casella Waste, who was just finishing up their holiday sponsorship of the Toys for Kids program. After talking it over with Stephen McDonnell, their director of sales and marketing, Casella decided they had to be involved. We were ready to go.

We know that our listeners don't look forward to membership drives (okay, we actually have heard from a few of you who DO look forward to them), but we hope this partnership encourages you to support your public radio station, knowing that your pledge will also help foster a child's love of reading.

But why wait for the drive to begin? Make your pledge right now, your gift will give us a head start on the drive, as well as provide a new book for a child in our region.

Please click here to make your pledge to support VPR and this important effort - and thanks!

Inside Vermont Reads

VPR Commentary Producer Betty Smith offered these reflections about producing Vermont Reads on VPR:

Producing a broadcast project based on When The Emperor Was Divine has been a fascinating experience. To begin with, the book is beautifully written and brings alive a significant but little known episode in our history. And it's quite easy to see how the human rights issues it raises relate to current, post-9/11 events.

What was less clear at the outset was any direct connection to our particular region. After all, the internment of ethnic Japanese occurred almost exclusively on the West Coast. But once we began to research the topic within our own community, it didn't take us long to discover people and events that very effectively bring the story home. The amount of work involved in conducting that kind of research and follow-up has been considerable but the results have been extremely satisfying.

You can listen to VPR's 2009 Vermont Reads series online.