With 25 years of experience helping parents throughout New York City raise resilient readers, we at LINC understand that our work does not stop with read-alouds. Our approach helps families build a variety of lifelong skills in order to generate lasting change in their communities.
In 2016, the American Psychological Association found that “children’s initial reading competency is correlated with the home literacy environment, number of books owned, and parent distress.” Homes where parents feel more financially secure lead to greater confidence and an ability to prioritize reading with their children.
To that end, LINC partnered with our friends at Cathay Bank to provide our Very Involved Parents (VIPs) a workshop on developing their own spending and savings plan. This two-hour event gave parents the space to learn from financial experts, ask questions, and offer their own tricks for saving money. By sharing ideas and collaborating on ways to navigate financial challenges, participants created a fantastic atmosphere of community problem solving.
Program Coordinator Wilkarlys Zaman gave this tip: “Before you order dinner, think about what is already in your kitchen. Ordering food is a nice treat, but it gets expensive!” Starting the day or the week by planning meals saves a ton of time and money in the long run. Plus, homemade meals are often healthier and can be an opportunity to involve your children by asking their help to measure ingredients or do a taste test!
This practical program ended with a raffle in which the winner won a pack of smart light bulbs, and the runner up received a set of stickers and a picture book for their personal library!
Thank you to Stanley Moy and Glenda Uy of Cathay Bank for your continued support of LINC’s mission and for leading this important workshop. We are grateful for your financial insight and thrilled to see such active participation of our VIPs, who lead the charge in their communities as literacy leaders and advocates.
As our Director of Family & Community Engagement Albania Jimenez puts it, “All the little things count. We save a little bit of money here and there and at the end of the month it adds up.” Similarly, we believe that literacy is something to invest in. Day by day, our parents’ efforts transform the future of their children, our city, and our world.
To learn more about LINC’s Very Involved Parents program, check out: www.lincnyc.org/vip