At Tandem, we’re all about telling stories. We love to tell stories about what we do and how we do it. More importantly, we relish the opportunity to share stories from the people we serve. In late 2018, we learned we would be included in a group of nonprofit organizations that would be working on a video project to share their stories with the larger community.

When the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation announced that Tandem would be included in the their 2019 NEWSMAKERS lecture series, our team was thrilled.  The NEWSMAKERS lecture series brings in prominent speakers on a variety of topics, from politics to science to literature and more, and serves to promote local nonprofit organizations at each speaking engagement. As part of the honor of being chosen as a featured nonprofit for a NEWSMAKERS lecture, the KTVU FOX 2 news team would work closely with the nonprofit to produce a video to share our story with community.

In order to adequately tell the Tandem story, we knew we needed to feature educator and parent voices. In March, we reached out to our good friends at the Delta First 5 Center in Brentwood, where they are currently running our Tandem StoryCycles® school-to-home book-sharing program. Site director Jeni Johnson and Program Assistant Rhea Hodges coordinated with the Tandem Contra Costa team to set up a great time to film a Read Aloud, led by Tandem Community Literacy Specialist Laura Rodriguez, and allow time to interview parents currently participating in the StoryCycles program.

The result was a beautifully captured story of the what it means to be part of the Tandem community. We are so grateful to the Lesher Foundation for supporting this project financially, and to the KTVU crew for capturing Tandem’s work in action. We are very grateful to Jeni Johnson, Rhea Hodges, and the families that drop in to the Delta First 5 Center for play dates, Read Alouds, and more.