May 16 and 17 - Professional Development for Summer Moonshot Academy  (also May 30 and 31)

May 19 - Moonshot Showcase & End of Year Celebration

June 5 - Moonshot Academy Summer Sessions Begin

June 12 - 16 - Pacesetter Awards at the national Campaign for Grade Level Reading in Denver, CO  (Rocket Bus to Denver)

July 13 - National Summer Learning Day

This year's summer camp providers included representatives from the School District, Vero Beach Karate Association, McKee Botanical Gardens, Florida Archery, Indian River Sheriff's Department, Moonshot Academy, Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Vero Beach Museum of Art, Dasie Hope, Strive 4 Success, the Indian River County Library System, Youth Guidance, CCR and local preschools and more!

We are working to develop a more cohesive MSAT group, and to identify our community's available summer resources and need areas.  Stay tuned for more updates on our summer learning work!

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On April 1st, we organized our 4th annual "Read Across the Field" with about 500 student athletes representing all of our County's public/charter elementary schools, gathering the largest number of readers assembled on the football field at Sebastian River High School.  The aerial photo was taken by the Indian River County Sheriff's department, and all of our schools principals and P.E. teachers supported the event!

We partnered with Jones Temple Church and the Gifford Youth Achievement Center to host the County's first Moonshot Moment Literacy Festival in Gifford, on April 8th. 

Over 150 people attended our event, held at Gifford Middle School, including dozens of volunteers.  The guest speaker was William T. Holt, children's author and motivational speaker.  Freddie Woolfork of GYAC was a guest reader, with help from several teens who dressed as their favorite children's book character.  

Events included a Book Tasting; Build a Book; Musical Chairs to Literacy; Face Painting with Words; Make a Bookmark crafts; Literacy Basketball and more!  

It was a true Moonshot Community event, with donations and support from several local Churches; Literacy Services; GYAC; Best Buy; Starbucks; Ruby Tuesday; AMC Theater; Molina Healthcare; Publix and Mulligans. 

 

The event ended with a very successful Poetry Slam, with an enthusiastic and supportive crowd "snapping" for our student and adult poets, plus an entertaining rap from the host of the Poetry Slam!  

Poetry Slam Participants

Over 250 people attended The Learning Alliance's annual gala cocktail party / dinner event on April 5, 2017 at the Vero Beach Museum of Art.

The party was our best yet - with a virtual reality exhibit, presentations from TLA leaders and international social change consultant Heidi Sparkes-Guber, plus stargazing with the IRSC Astronomy Club!

  

This arts-enriched literacy project is part of a national campaign that is being spearheaded in Indian River County called: Voices - A Community Tapestry of Stories.

The simple project is based on the poem, "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon, the poet laureate from Kentucky.  The purpose of the Tapestry Project is to collect the stories of our County -as we know that everyone has a story and they are all important! It is an arts-enriched literacy experience, as it requires writing, drawing, and oral language, which is the basis for literacy.

The tapestry pieces will then be woven together to become a traveling art display that can be featured in our local Museum; in a literacy-exhibits we bring as a rally to Tallahassee; and also part of the national campaign for grade level reading exhibit in Washington, D.C.

Conference attendees participated in the enriched literacy experience of the Tapestry project