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Integrated Learning-Living Communities

Building Communities for Social Justice

By Lori Phillips-Young

The mission of the Building Community through Social Justice ILLC is literacy.  For several years, we have adopted Edison Elementary School on Broadway Street on the West Side of Dayton as our academic/civic partner.  We have been assisting second and third graders with reading and homework tutoring to help prepare them to pass the reading proficiency test.  Each year, our classes and our Social Justice Service Club have tutored reading after school and participated in a Pen Pal Program. At Christmas, we provide each child with a book, bookmarks, holiday letters, Christmas cards, candy canes, and a packet of hot chocolate for them to enjoy, as they read a new book over the holidays.  This year we adopted 28 second graders and 55 third graders. 

This semester, the Building Community through Social Justice ILLC built a new relationship with a new Dayton civic-retail partner.  We are proud to announce that our partner is the OneDollarBookSwap company on Webster Street.  Their mission is to put one million books in the hands of one million children a year.  All books, tapes, CDs, and DVDs are only $1.  Our volunteers worked a three-hour shift in the warehouse and earned $10 an hour toward store credit for the purchase of books for Edison Elementary.  Our students raised over $1,200 worth of store credit (that’s 1200 books!).

Our work with the OneDollarBookSwap will provide our 83 children with 2 books this year and a $50 gift certificate for each one of the classroom teachers.

Our spring goal is to raise enough money so that every child (K-6) will be able to take home 10 books each for summer reading.

We are committed to Edison and are thankful to have found Greg Murphy's OneDollarBookSwap store. Together, we are both realizing each other's goal of improving literacy in the Miami Valley.

- Lori Phillips-Young, BCSJ Coordinator

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