As a service to our surrounding communities, the Panetta Institute coordinates the Monterey County Reads (MCR) program in cooperation with the county's Office of Education. Launched in 1997, this program has trained almost 1,600 reading volunteers who have spent close to 79,000 hours helping students in grades K through 3 in Monterey County schools.

The program operates under the leadership of Institute director Sylvia Panetta. She notes that 40 percent of America's fourth graders can't read at grade level. “That’s just unacceptable,” she says, “and we’re determined to help turn that around.”

Monterey County Reads is backed by a consortium of school districts, institutions of higher education, the Monterey County Office of Education, public and private high schools, and youth organizations, along with the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. MCR also recruits reading volunteers from businesses, community organizations, churches and synagogues, hospitals, military installations, law enforcement groups and other government agencies. There are several special projects sponsored by the consortium that further support the mission of this program.

Books for Children

In 2003, the Panetta Institute was awarded a $50,000 grant from Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network. This money is being used over a period of five years for purchase of books for children in the MCR program. During the past nine years, thousands of books have been distributed to Monterey County Reads children at the end of each semester.

Family Literacy

MCR has developed a Saturday Storytime model for local community libraries and schools to bring children and their families to read with volunteers. MCR also has created a reading program at the Natividad Medical Center where auxiliary volunteers read to pediatric outpatients while they wait to see the doctor. At the end of their visit, the doctor writes a “prescription” to read daily. The nurse then gives the child a book to keep. High school student and college volunteers are also recruited for after-school and summer school reading programs.

To augment these efforts to improve basic reading skills, the Institute secured a grant from the Community Foundation for Monterey County to publish a second edition of a local history book— More Than Memories by well known local author Randy Reinstedt—and then distributed 5,000 copies to public and private elementary schools in the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas Valley areas. According to Institute co-director Sylvia Panetta, getting this second edition printed and into classrooms is “one more way that the Panetta Institute and the Monterey County Reads project can reach out to promote literacy in our local elementary schools.”

"Our goal," notes Dr. Nancy Kotowski, Superintendent of the Monterey County Office of Education, "is to have all children reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade."

Special Thanks to AmeriCorps*VISTA

For its first nine years, this program relied on the assistance of a dedicated team of AmeriCorps*VISTA members, and we are deeply grateful for their efforts. Anyone interested in joining AmeriCorps*VISTA should contact the Corporation for National Community Service at www.cns.gov.

Please Help Us Reach More Children

To reach more children, we need more MCR partners – businesses and other organizations – to join us by offering volunteers. You can also help by contributing money to this important effort.

We welcome your interest and questions. Please contact us.