Girl Scouts Luisa and Sara, pictured with Tandem’s Julie Barton.

Sara Dada and Luisa Taverna of Girl Scout Troop 31091 in San Ramon have been awarded the Girl Scout Silver Award by the Girl Scouts of Northern California for their project, “Reading Connections.”  The Silver Award is the highest award girls ages 11-14 can earn and requires a minimum of 50 hours of preparation, planning, and work to create a lasting project that will benefit the community. Inspired by their own love of reading, the girls wanted to find a way of giving children with special needs the opportunity to experience the magic and joy of books.

As part of their project, the girls contacted Tandem to explore the possibility of collaborating to provide children with special needs the types of books that would motivate the children to read and share books every day. Under the guidance of Julie Barton, PhD, Tandem Development Manager, Sara and Luisa learned about the benefits of creating adapted books. Adapted books are altered by adding easy-to-use tabs or ribbons to the pages, to make them easier to turn for children with fine motor limitations. Adapted books are also embellished with different textures, such as felt and feathers, to make them even more joyful and interesting! To ensure that the books are more accessible to non-verbal children or pre-readers, small, laminated images and symbols may also be added to a book so that children may then match these images and symbols to words and illustrations referenced within the stories using Velcro dots.

To earn their Silver Award, Sara & Luisa organized volunteers to spend an afternoon adapting books for children with special needs.

After learning the ropes with Julie, the girls decided to host a book adaptation workshop at a community center and recruit friends to spend some time adapting books for children in need. In order to purchase the books to be adapted and rent the venue, Sara and Luisa collected money through baby-sitting jobs and donations. Tandem provided all the craft supplies needed to adapt the books. With their friends and Julie, the girls were able to spend a fun afternoon laminating, cutting, and gluing to successfully adapt 36 board books. Once all the books were completed, Tandem distributed the books to children within the community that would most benefit from adapted books. Some books were given away at Tandem community events, and others were donated to preschool classrooms and family child care centers that serve special needs children and families.

Through this project, the girls learned about the challenges of learning disabilities, budgeting, project management, teamwork, leadership, and the undeniable value of helping others. Sara and Luisa hope to continue working to support children’s literacy initiatives in the future.

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If you are interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities with Tandem, take a look at our Volunteer page! Opportunities are available for groups (large or small!) and corporations. Have other ideas on how to get involved with Tandem? Send us an email! We’d love to hear from you.