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A celebration of reading and family literacy at the Jenks school

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Students at the John Story Jenks Academy for Arts and Sciences, a K-8 public school in Chestnut Hill, celebrate Reading Promise Week after school on Oct. 13, 2022.

Students at the J.S. Jenks Academy in Chestnut Hill, record video as they attend presentations in the auditorium, celebrating Reading Promise Week and family literacy.
Students at the J.S. Jenks Academy in Chestnut Hill, record video as they attend presentations in the auditorium, celebrating Reading Promise Week and family literacy.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

It was part of a week-long, city-wide reading and family literacy program hosted by Read by 4th, a Philadelphia-based movement to ensure that every local child has the skills to be strong readers. Over 50 free events were scheduled around the city, including book block parties, read alouds by local authors, artists, and poets, and literacy-boosting giveaways. The group distributed 13,000 books. At Jenks, they also celebrated the grand opening of the school’s new lending library and community collaboration center. Prather O’Donnell, the Children’s Librarian at the Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library was behind the effort to re-establish the long-closed library, with lots of community help

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