Paul Bass Photo
Harp, center, with Levinsohn, right, and NHR board member and tutor Susan Netter.
Mayor Toni Harp made an electronic deposit Monday at New Haven Reads on Bristol Street, then challenged holiday-season charitable donors to follow suit.
Harp gave the not-for-profit center — which collects donated books and tutors city kids in reading — four iPad minis. The organization’s tutors use the minis to teach the 500 children with whom they work each week on an online literacy software program called Lexia.
Harp said she got the idea at a U.S. Conference of Mayor Conference, where Mayor Edwin Lee gave each participant an iPad mini tablet for the trip back home. He suggested that the mayors then donate the tablets to a local agency.
Harp thought of her stated goal of making New Haven “known as the city that reads.” So she decided to donate the tablet to New Haven Reads, which the late Chris Alexander founded in 2001 and now has three branches. Harp added three more tablets purchased with money from her inaugural ball two years ago, which she put into a charitable foundation with a goal of promoting literacy.
New Haven Reads Executive Director Kirsten Levinsohn thanked Harp for the donations, which brings the organization’s total to 16. It could use 18 more, she said.
“I challenge others to make a tablet donation to this agency so it can upgrade” its commitment to reading, Harp said. She recently formed a commission to explore how to boost reading among city kids and has pushed the Board of Ed to create a Saturday reading academy targeted at struggling younger readers.
Click here to read more about New Haven Reads.
Before Monday afternoon’s drop-off, Harp spoke about the gift and her broader goals for literacy during a “Mayor Monday” episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.” Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full episode; the literacy portion begins at 4:50.
