Casey and Charlie’s Foundation for Dogs and Kids is opening the Lectura Lounge on Friday, Jan. 12. It’s in the Bellaire building in Prospector.
The Lectura Lounge is an after-school program designed to support dual-language immersion programs in the Park City School District. However, anyone is welcome, including adults.
While the school district has programs in French and Spanish, the Lectura Lounge focuses on Spanish. Maritza Refuerzo, the foundation’s program director, said that’s because her two sons are in the Spanish immersion program at McPolin Elementary.
She said the name Lectura Lounge also comes from a program called Padres de Lectura which means reading buddies.
“They were a program that was run in San Francisco at the boys' elementary school before we moved here, and we want to model it after that program,” Refuerzo said.
Students of all ages can get community service hours by volunteering to be part of the program. As a volunteer, they can read to a buddy, organize the library and market the program.
“Volunteers will read in their dominant language to children whose primary language is opposite theirs,” Refuerzo said.
The first part of the reading buddies' program will be devoted to community building. Participants can mingle for a half hour and enjoy a light meal. Then the reading begins, which Refuerzo said they’ve prepped for.
“We actually bought acoustic room dividers because it gets loud," she said. "The reading buddies' program in San Francisco, they did it in the school library, and it was so loud. So, we thought, okay, we’ll buy these room dividers, you know, we're totally prepared.”
The Lectura Lounge will have an open house from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 12. The first reading buddies' session will kick off on Jan. 18 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Refuerzo hopes to have the reading program at least twice a week in the afternoons and evenings. Future dates are yet to be determined.