Super Saturday, times six!

The 6th Annual Super Saturday Family Fest, held on Saturday, October 13^th, was the most successful yet for West County Reads. This wonderful festival for West County families, sponsored by First Five Contra Costa and the West County Regional Group, was held in a new location (JFK Park rather than Richmond City Hall). Despite the move, we saw some of the largest crowds ever at the West County Reads table. Each year Super Saturday serves as one of the most important venues for West County Reads to interact directly with families from central Richmond and San Pablo. This was true again this year.

Our distribution of free books to children was a real highlight once again. This year we distributed over 1500 books, probably a record. Watching the faces of the children light up at the sight of boxes of books and the prospect that they can select one to keep is one of the true joys of being associated with our program. Boardmembers Robin Wilson, Kevin Hufferd and Summer Brenner were joined by volunteers from UC Berkeley’s Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity to help distribute books and talk to parents about reading resources in the community. And once again, our reading wizard (Don Delcollo) drew many kids in with his narration of various children¹s books in our reading tent.

With the superb guidance and detail of board member Robin Wilson, we were able to dispense over three dozen raffle prizes during our raffle. To qualify, families filled out surveys that gave us more insight into what kind of programming and events they'd like to see in their community, which in turn helps us determine what approaches to take for future events.

We also distributed West County Reads! Posters and bookmarks to the large audience, along with 48 Spanish/English dictionaries and 12 Spanish/English thesauruses, which has received a great response to in the past. All in all, Super Saturday was truly indeed a Super Saturday where there were lots of smiles, and more importantly, lots of books.

Setting up for the big day!

Our reading wizard entranced young readers with his lyrical storytelling.

A young reader engrossed in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle story

Another young reader, thrilled with all the literary possibilities that lay ahead