The Youth Literature Festival was an exciting event for the Champaign-Urbana community. It was also an opportunity for your organization to provide valuable volunteers. The Youth Literature Festival took place October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at a number of venues throughout the local area. Information can be found at youthlitfest.education.illinois.edu.
Volunteers from local schools, the University of Illinois and surrounding communities had been meeting regularly over the past year to plan the first Youth Literature Festival. We worked hard to ensure that children and families have the opportunity to interact with authors and illustrators to celebrate literacy and literature. The first two days of the festival involved visits to several school districts in east central Illinois by a number of nationally known authors and illustrators. The festival culminated in a day of celebration and activities for the community at large on Saturday, October 4th. The celebration included appearances by the authors on campus and in the community, storytelling and puppetry, student sponsored activities for young children, student musical performances, and a resource fair on the South Quad.
Volunteers were secured from local organizations on Saturday, October 4th for the University of Illinois various campus activities. The events ran from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Our volunteer shifts ran from 9:30 – 1:00 and from 12:30 – 4:00 p.m. We have posted a list describing our volunteer needs on this site.
We thank you for joining us in helping with this exciting celebration! The festival events were designed to bring together families from throughout the area, those involved with the public sector, and a variety of community groups for one main goal: making literature the center of our lives. We enjoy working with you to help reach this goal
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jean Johnson by email at jeanie54@mac.com or call Cindy Reiter at 244-3328.
Sincerely,
The Youth Literature Festival Volunteer Committee