The National Mentoring Month Cozy Quilt Raffle was won by Kathy Jones of Hanover, NH. Kathy is herself a quilter, so this seems very apt.

This year’s Quilt Raffle raised $4000, twice the total of previous quilt raffles.

Thank you to everyone who bought tickets and made additional contributions! Your generosity is what keeps pairs like Payson and Elaine, from Bluff School in Claremont, reading together year after year:

And one more huge thank you to Toni Williams, amazing quilt artist and wonderful Claremont coordinator, for donating this quilt and past ones. Thank you, Toni!

It’s National Mentoring Month! A wonderful time to support children and their mentors.

Tremendously talented Claremont coordinator Toni Williams has donated a gorgeous quilt in support of Everybody Wins! Thank you, Toni!

Raffle tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20, and are available only online at this link: https://bit.ly/QuiltRaffle25.

50% of raffle ticket sales will support Claremont Everybody Wins!, and 50% will support the organization statewide.

The quilt measures approximately 70″ by 70″ — a great throw blanket or to hang over the sides of a twin bed. The quilt composition of rich jewel tones is complimented by a backing in a gorgeous deep forest green pattern, with an intricate quilting pattern throughout!

More information and YOUR chance to win this beautiful quilt at this link: https://bit.ly/QuiltRaffle25

Or scan this QR code to be taken to the raffle site:Thank you for taking a chance on children! Good luck, everyone!

We couldn’t be happier to have Neha Shukla join Everybody Wins! Vermont! as the operations manager at our Montpelier office. Neha’s broad experience, her smarts, and her friendly demeanor make her a perfect match for this busy position that serves as a hub for the entire organization.

Neha is an artist and a mom of two awesome kids. With her family, she calls a beautiful valley in Worcester, Vermont home.  Before joining Everybody Wins!, Neha worked as an office manager at a local architecture firm and before that, she coordinated all things food-related in the running of an elementary school food service program.  She finds joy in art, cooking, books, and of course the people she loves.  She also loves exploring the surrounding mountains and forests with her family.

We are delighted to welcome Neha to our central office admin team!

Daryl Seitchik is the new Everybody Wins! coordinator at White River School in Hartford. We couldn’t be happier to welcome Daryl to our Upper Valley team!

Daryl is a cartoonist and teacher, as well as the  site coordinator for Everybody Wins! White River School. Daryl graduated from Barnard College in 2012, and received an MFA in cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2018. She has taught comics workshops for children, teens, and adults at schools, libraries, and museums all throughout New England, and loves to spread the word that reading can be empowering and fun. She is the author of “How We Read: A Graphic Guide to Literacy,” a comic book about how our brains learn to read and why it can be a struggle to learn. See more of Daryl’s work at her website: www.darylseitchik.com.

Welcome to Everybody Wins!

Northfield Everybody Wins! has a new coordinator! Welcome to Haley Cameron.

Haley began coordinating the Northfield Everybody Wins! program before winter break. It’s been wonderful to see the mentors come back to connect with children again in the Northfield Elementary School library.

Haley grew up in the Mad River Valley and now lives in Northfield with her husband, ten month old son, cats, and dog. She has been a bookworm from a young age and loves sharing the joy of books with her family. She has her Bachelor’s in English Literature from Concordia University in Montreal and loves travelling back to Canada whenever possible. She is thrilled to work with Everybody Wins! Vermont to spread the love of reading!

Everybody Wins! is just as thrilled to have Haley on our team. Welcome aboard, Haley!

There’s a new Everybody Wins! program this year, at Hinesburg Community School—and Janet Gray is joining the Everybody Wins! team to make it happen!

Janet has a Masters Degree in Information Science from The University of Texas at Austin and has been both a classroom teacher and public school librarian. After a few years home with her family, Janet is excited to get back to connecting children with literature. Janet and her family recently relocated to South Burlington from Colorado, and she enjoys time exploring Vermont, spending time with family, hiking, reading, embroidery, and baking.

Hinesburg Community School applied to host an Everybody Wins! Vermont program in the last round of school applications, in 2023. We are delighted to have Hinesburg on board and to work with CY Mentoring there as we do at the Shelburne Community School.

Reading in Hinesburg will take place on Tuesday and Thursday at lunchtime and will start in early December. To reach Janet and learn more about the Hinesburg program, click here. To apply to be a mentor in Hinesburg, click here.

Everybody Wins! at Brookside School in Waterbury has a new coordinator: Jeannie Randall. We are so excited to welcome her to the team!

Jeannie is a mother, volunteers as a  girl scout leader, and has been a child care provider and a lunch lady.  She loves to share books with children, and especially reading with her child at bedtime. She has two bookshelves full of children’s books at her home and donated many to the lunchroom when she was in food service. Jeannie lives in Moretown with her husband and daughter (who is a bookworm) along with her cat Kava and three fish.  She enjoys going for walks, swimming, cross country skiing, gardening, and studying nutrition.

Thank you for a great Race to the Top!

Thanks to your generosity, we raised over $15,000 for children and reading!

Thanks to The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, $5000 of that will be DOUBLED to support programs in the Upper Connecticut River Valley!

It’s not too late! Click here to donate now and help us bring reading to more children in VT and NH schools this year!

Thank you to our hosts, the Catamount Trail Association! See you on Mansfield next year!

Eleanor Perry is the new assistant coordinator in Everybody Wins! St. Johnsbury. Eleanor has been a mentor in the St. Johnsbury Everybody Wins! for 2 years. She lives in Danville with her husband John, also a St. J mentor.

Eleanor says, “One of my earliest memories took place when I was 5 or 6 years old – long before anyone thought of Pre-K programs. I was the youngest of four children, and my mom thought Iwas too young to go to the library with my siblings. My brother was charged with taking out a library book I would enjoy. When my sibs came home I heard that my brother was insulted because the book the librarian recommended was “for babies!”

Everybody Wins! is a program that assumes, as my brother did, that every child should be given the opportunity to learn to love reading. That’s why I wanted to be part of this program.”

Welcome, welcome, Eleanor! We’re so happy to have you on the team.

Katie Wiseman has been with Everybody Wins! for 10 years—fun fact, she was the first person hired by the then-brand-new director Beth Wallace. Now she’s coming back to her roots as the coordinator of our new program at Hinesburg Community School. Everybody Wins! is the luckiest!

Katie has worked for Everybody Wins! since 2014, originally as a site coordinator at J.J. Flynn Elementary and The Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes in Burlington. Since 2016, Katie has processed all mentor applications as the administrative coordinator. A woman of many skills, Katie also compiles our annual survey results and creates the survey reports for each school. Katie was first introduced to mentoring with the DREAM Program as a student at Champlain College and went on to work for the DREAM Program through AmeriCorps. She is known in Everybody Wins! for her cheerful can-do attitude. Katie lives in South Burlington with her family, where they love to read aloud and visit bookstores and libraries.