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November 15, 2023Earlier this month, the Lafourche Education Foundation distributed 68 literacy kits to several local elementary schools to help improve reading education across the parish.
In 2023, the Bayou Community Foundation granted $15,000 to the Lafourche Education Foundation through their Annual Nonprofit Grands Program to fund literacy enrichment in six Lafourche Parish Schools. “The Bayou Community Foundation loves supporting our Bayou Region Nonprofits,” read a Facebook post from the organization. “These amazing kits are now being delivered into the hands of our teachers and students!”
“The purpose of these literacy kits are part of a statewide initiative to improve reading through small-group learning activities with manipulatives,” explained Deanna Lafont with the Lafourche Education Foundation. “This small-group, hands-on instruction helps the kids learn more about phonetics and reading. One of the challenges of this, however, was that there was no funding to purchase manipulatives for these students and teachers to use. We were looking for ways to support our teachers, and this initiative was brought to our attention.”
Each literacy kit includes important, hands-on manipulatives for students to use during small-group reading instruction, helping them to quickly retrain more information and improve reading test scores. The literacy kits were delivered to Thibodaux Elementary, Raceland Lower Elementary, W.S. Lafargue Elementary, Bayou Blue Elementary, South Larose Elementary, and Golden Meadow Lower Elementary. Each of these schools are currently considered at-risk schools, and more than 1,600 students grades K-2 will benefit from access to these literacy kits.
While funding was made possible thanks to the Bayou Community Foundation’s grant, the Lafourche Education Foundation covered remaining costs of the literacy kits with direct proceeds from their Bayou King Cake Festival. The next Bayou King Cake Festival, in direct support of local teachers, will take place on Saturday, January 27, 2024 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. in Downtown Thibodaux. Tickets may be purchased in advance here.