Kent District Library is pleased to award Robin Trocinski, Kristy McPherson-Leitz and Life Change Book Club with the 2024 Literacy Champion Awards. Trocinski, a preschool teacher at Duncan Lake Early Childhood Center, and McPherson-Leitz, a high school teacher at Kenowa Hills High School, each received an individual award due to a tie vote. Life Change Book Club received the organization award. They all received a cash prize to further their literacy efforts and a crystal trophy.
KDL offers the Literacy Champion Award for outstanding leadership and advocacy of literacy. The award goes to an individual and an organization who does or has done something exceptional to promote literacy. This year, KDL received 18 nominations, which were reviewed by its Board of Trustees and Leadership Team to select the winners.
As a preschool teacher, Trocinski strives to create a strong foundation for literacy in the Early Childhood years. She immerses her students in literature and the building-block skills needed to learn to read and works to give literacy tools and supports to the school families. Each year, Trocinski helps to organize the Duncan Lake Preschool Literacy Festival, an event where children play games, interact with other students and earn a free book.
“I represent a larger entity of individuals who strive to create a strong foundation for literacy in the Early Childhood years,” Trocinski said. “The award money will be such a help to supplement our reading sources.”
McPherson-Leitz’s classroom library currently has over 1,800 books, and when she conducts one-on-one reading conferences with students at the end of the school year, many of them say that their reading skills and enjoyment of reading have grown because of the access to books, book talks and book recommendations they receive from her. All of her students have read over 1,000 pages this year, 19 have read over 5,000 pages, and five have read over 10,000 pages (the record this year is 93,132 pages). McPherson-Leitz also led the charge for hundreds of Kenowa Hills students to apply for and receive KDL Student Library Cards.
“My job as an English teacher is to help students comprehend what they read,” McPherson-Leitz said. “My passion, however, is to help students learn to love what they read and to choose to read, and that's what I strive for every day.”
Life Change Book Club has been meeting in a local correctional facility for over ten years. Each week, volunteers meet with 15-20 incarcerated individual to read and discuss high-quality books. More than 100 books have been read thus far. Many of the participants were never read to as a child, and now books have become some of their most prized possessions.
Prison administration used to require all books to come new and straight from the publisher to the facility, which was very expensive. Life Change Book Club is now able to use books from KDL’s Book Club in a Bag program.
“The Book Club in a Bag program has allowed us to provide so many more reading experiences to our members, as well as a valuable connection to the world outside the prison walls,” said Arend Vander Pols, one of the book club facilitators.
The Literacy Champion Awards were given out at KDL’s Board Meeting on August 15. Public nominations for Literacy Champions are received throughout the year at kdl.org/literacychampion.
