It didn’t take much to persuade Left Bank Books’ proprietor Kris Kleindienst to launch an online book fair for the English Tutoring Project (ETP), which provides English language skills in Catholic schools to children from refugee and immigrant families at no cost. In July, I joined Sister Kathleen Koenen, a School Sister of Notre Dame who was one of the founders of ETP, as she pitched her idea, which Kleindienst readily embraced.
The English Tutoring Project is dear to my heart. I recently joined the Advisory Committee which meets quarterly at the Daughters of Charity offices at 4330 Olive Street (at Boyle) in the CWE. I was drawn by the simplicity and success of the sisters’ work, which began in 1998 in the South City area where so many of the immigrant population reside.
In the early days of ETP the sisters would pull up to different Catholic grade schools in a van and teach English in their makeshift classroom. It wasn’t long before they were assigned a room of their own inside the schools where they could tutor children from as many as 20 different countries, including China, Vietnam, Burma, Romania, Albania, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Republic of Congo, and Honduras.
English Tutoring Project’s goal for the online book fair is to create a “Take Home and Read Library” of dual-language, early learning books for beginning-level students. Those interested in supporting this project can purchase books the children will share with their families. Left Bank Books makes it easy. You have the option of choosing a selection of different books, or a series, Curious George, etc. Click here for LBB’s ETP Book Fair page. At check out, select “ship to store,” and someone from ETP will pick up the donations.
These books improve attitudes toward learning English and reading.
These books are respectful of the language of the home.
Not all homes have books for reading.
We want our students to read as much as possible!