By: Mikayla Langon

Family Literacy Day was all about community, kids and reading. Lots of reading! 

On Saturday, April 1, students from COM 2230 Teamwork and Organizations organized Belmont’s 21st Annual Family Literacy Day. For the past several years, the “teams” in COM 2230 take on a various parts of planning and implementing the event for their semester-long project.

Family Literacy Day encourages literacy skills in kids and teaches them the joy of reading through reading circles. Kids from grades Pre K- 6th grade all came together with their families to hear stories, play games and win prizes. 

The event is an opportunity for Belmont to give back to the Nashville community. One student, MJ Gabriel, said, “it was a beautiful turnout and beautiful day… to see the utter joy of kids just being kids and their excitement for reading.” MJ and her team were responsible for setting up Family Literacy Day. She went on to say, “even if it was just to get some popcorn and get their faces painted, they were so excited to walk out that door with a book in their hand.” 

Another student, Carly DeMartino was a part of the reading circles volunteer group. She described how happy the kids were to join the reading groups and get stickers for snacks, crafts, face-painting and popcorn. She said, “it was so nice to see how well everything we contributed to and organized came together so nicely and how so many kids were excited for the event. It was a super exciting day to see that all of our work had paid off and that we made some kids very happy.” 

Family Literacy Day is a day for kids to just be kids and celebrate the joy of reading and creativity.